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Mr- 





THE 




VINDICATION 

* 

V*'- OF 

JEKYLL, ESQ. 

»\ 

Late Captain of the 43 d (or Monmouthshire) Regiment; 

WITH A COPY OF THE 

IProcee&mgs of tfje ©enecal Court ^Martial 

HELD ON 

COLONEL STEWART, 

» 

Of the same Regiment; 

TOGETHER WITH 

THE SEVERAL MEMORIALS AND LETTERS 

ADDRESSED TO 

His Royal Highness the Commander in Chief, 

The Right Hon. the Secretary at War, 

AND THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL, 

WITH THEIR ANSWERS, 

Me. Me. Me. 

THE WHOLE FORMING AN INTERESTING CASE 

TO THE ARMY AND TO THE PUBLIC IN GENERAL, 

Selon que vous serez puissant ou miserable, les jugements de—~ — 
vous rendront ou blancou noir. La Fontaine. 

* 

• ■> . 

LONDON: 

Printed by D. N. SHURY, No. 7, Berwick Street, Soho, 

FOR E, LLOYD, HARLEY STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE. 


180 Jo 
















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. \ 

INTRODUCTION. 



It appears to me an indispensable sacred duty, 
and a solemn obligation to society, that every in¬ 
dividual, however humble may be his station in the 
scene of life, should, upon all occasions, exert his 
utmost to maintain unsullied an honest reputation : 
and that when a man, in the discharge of his duty 
to his king and his country, has been unjustly de¬ 
graded, and his name branded with ignominy, as 
mine has been in the general orders proclaimed at 
the head of every regiment throughout the army, 
(the proper means of justifying himself being de¬ 
nied him,) it is insuperably incumbent on him, 

* a 




VI 


INTRODUCTION 


not only in justice to the wounded feelings of his 
friends, as well as to his own character, but like¬ 
wise to the community, to adopt every lawful and 
just expedient effectually to dispel the obloquy 
which he supposes to have been unduly heaped 
upon him. Therefore, as I cannot persuade myself 
that the gates of the usual course of justice have 

been fully and impartially opened to me, I am 

\ 

irresistibly prompted to submit to the attention of 
the public, and communicate to rny friends, 
through the medium of the press, a ease which I 
humbly conceive to be of no trivial moment to 
the interests of the greater part of the officers of 
the army, and even to the welfare of the state. 

The reader will perceive, by the following copies 
of and transcripts from official documents, that I 

. 1 * t | 

have felt myself to have experienced, in the course 
of my duty as a captain in the 43d regiment of 
foot, a series of the most unhandsome, egreffiousiT 
unmilitary, and highly oppressive conduct * from 
col. Stewart, in his command of that corps; that l 

* Vide Letterto the lion, major-general Forbes, p. l.~~ 
Also, Specific Charges, p, 46 V 







INTRODUCTION. 


vil 

was actuated by a sense of duty to his Majesty’s ser¬ 
vice, after having made every possible sacrifice of 
my feelings as an officer and a gentleman, to exhi¬ 
bit a brief statement of my grievances to his Royal 
Highness the Commander in Chief; that, so far 
from my having met the support and aid which 1 
expected a warm regard for the honor and good 
of the service would have yielded me, I was re¬ 
quired to make humiliating acknowledgments and 
apologies, which no man of honest sentiment could 
have acceded to under the impressions which I 
believe I shall convince the reader I could not but 
have had of colonel Stewart; that, not having been 
able to reconcile to my mind those harsh conces¬ 
sions, I had to encounter uncommon disadvan¬ 
tages and almost insurmountable difficulties, in 
forming and in an attempt to substantiate my spe¬ 
cific charges before a general court martial, as¬ 
sembled at Sandgate on the 25th of June ; 

that, from the occurrence of several extraordinary 
circumstances, I was unable to prove to the satis¬ 
faction of the court martial the facts upon which 
those accusations were grounded; and that, in 









VliL 


INTRODUCTION. 


consequence of the very severe sentence pro¬ 
nounced upon my conduct by the general court 
martial held on colonel Stewart, I have been in 
great disgrace dismissed from his Majesty’s service; 
and after upwards of ten years services, (through¬ 
out which period I trust it might be found, upon 
inquiry, by vouchers from several military and po¬ 
litical characters who have long ranked very high 
in the public estimation, added to testimonials now 
in my possession, that I have ever borne most 
fervently at heart the honour and interest of my 
king and of my country,) I am cast upon the 
world, my character unjustly stigmatised, with the 
total loss of a company which I purchased in the 
month of May 1795. 

It will also be seen, that I have most earnestly 
implored his Royal Highness the Commander in 
Chief to pray that his Majesty would graciously 
be^)I<5ased to afford me an opportunity of justify¬ 
ing my conduct * before a military tribunal, 

* By the laws of our glorious constitution, it is an esta¬ 
blished privilege of the subject that lie shall be fully heard 
in every-thing, he may wish to urge in his defence, before a 







INTRODUCTION 


IN 


upon the grounds of my case not having been in - 
vestigated, by the court martial held on colonel 
Stewart, through the several very serious and ma¬ 
terial incidents—of my having been peremptorily 
refused the aid which I most particularly suppli- 

judgment shall be passed that shall affect his life or property. 
For, although our laws decree the penalty of murder to be 
death, yet in some cases the fact of killing a man is not only 
justifiable, but even commendable in the eyes of those laws; 
■wherefore a man’s being seen with the bloody instrument, 
and acknowledging that he had taken the life of another 
who had been found slain, is not sufficient evidence to hang 
him, without a full and mature proof that the deceased had 
been killed under malicious motives or premeditated intent: 
and if judgment be passed upon that man without a most im¬ 
partial and equitable trial, he, or his counsel in his name, 
may arrest (hat judgment, and appeal to the king in council, 
who is bound by the most possible solemn obligations to 
cause justice to be administered to the appellant according 
to the true spirit of the established laws and customs. Our 
most benevolent Sovereign has commanded that the civil 
codes be as far as possible regarded as forming the basis for 
the proceedings of courts martial. Until very lately it 
has been considered not only a matter of common equity, 
but of undoubted right, that if an officer failed in the 
prosecution of charges exhibited against another, he should 
be permitted to justify his dwn conduct in bringing for¬ 
ward those accusations before a court martial to be held upon 
himself. 











i 


ZZ INTRODUCTION. 

cated, and which I as strongly represented as ne¬ 
cessary to have enabled me to frame my grievances 
under specific charges for trial by a general court 
martial; of my having, from motives of earnest 
solicitude for the interest of my late regiment, 
avoided examining those officers whom I intended 
calling upon in evidence, to ascertain the nature 
and extent of testimony which I fully believed 
they might and would have afforded me; of my 
not having reflected, under an extreme agitation 
of mind occasioned by the subject of my charges, 
that matters which created the most painful sen¬ 
sations in my own mind could so soon have almost 

• t 

entirely escaped the memory of those officers 
who had witnessed the very galling humiliations of 
which I have complained; of several witnesses, 
belonging to my late company, not supporting at 
the time of trial the evidence they at first led me 
to believe they would have given upon my second 
charge; of my having, from a fervent zeal for the 
welfare of the state, declined calling upon one of 
the most essential witnesses of the occurrences 

t • * V e . x v- « ■> . * ^ 


\ 





INTRODUCTION. 


XI 


stated in my first charge*, and likewise having 
improvident!)" entered upon the arduous task of a 
prosecutor of a commanding officer without two 
very important evidences (whose names I had 
given in at the same time with my charges), in con¬ 
sequence of their not having been summoned to 
attend the trial of colonel Stewart; and that, even 
in despite of these extraordinary circumstances, 
contrary to those principles which constitute the 

main spring of our civil and military laws, as well 

# 

as in opposition to the glorious maxims which 
have particularly characterised the reign of our 

most beloved and most equitable Sovereign, my 

« 

prayer for an investigation upon myself has been 
absolutely refused, under the pretext of my. case 
“ having been already fully evidenced” by a gene¬ 
ral court martial [held on colonel Stewart]. 

But, on the contrary, I must beg leave to state, 
that the court martial appeared so little disposed 
to make themselves acquainted with the motives 
through which my charges were submitted to 


* Lieutenant-general Sir Hew Dalrymple. 












Xll 


INTRODUCTION. 


their investigation, or even to have been fully in¬ 
formed upon the subject of those accusations, 
that notwithstanding the Court repeatedly ex¬ 
pressed, in very remarkable terms, great surprise 
at the excessive forgetfulness evinced by lieutenant 
colonel Leighton and major Barclay, [indeed ma¬ 
jor general Sir John Moore, the president, several 
times declared aloud to the Court, that, “ captain 
“ Jekyll was lost,” or had lost himself, from their 
extreme defection of memory, which he also said 
was “ very far beyond what I could have sup¬ 
posed possible;”] and after it appeared to the 
Court that neither of those two officers remember¬ 
ed the particular phrase of the reprimands which I 
suffered from lieutenant-general Sir Hew Dairy tu¬ 
ple, or the fact of my being called a “ skulking 
captain” on the garrison parade, in consequence 
of colonel Stewart’s erroneous report to him, I 
was not permitted from compliment to Sir Hew 
Dalrymple, ( (C because he was not present to jus¬ 
tify himself,”) to put a question to one of my own 
evidences of such essential moment to my first 
charge, as, “ whether I was reprimanded in terms 










INTRODUCTION. 


sin 


“ degrading to the feelings and character of an 
“ officer and a gentleman ?” 

The testimony given by Mr. Havelock (the 

* , . «■ . \ 

paymaster of the 43d regiment) in support 
of my assertion of having had colonel Stew¬ 
art’s permission to leave my recruiting party at 
Jersey in charge of the subaltern, seemed to 
have made such an impression (as may perhaps 
appear by the declaration of the president that I 
u was lost from the astonishing want of memory” 
of those officers who belonged to Sir Hew Dal- 
rymple’s staff) on the court martial, that I scarcely 
entertained a doubt but that my first and most 
serious charge would have been decreed substan¬ 
tiated, if I could have proved several facts that 

* 

were avowed by colonel Stewart in his weak and 
incoherent defence, which more than confirmed 
what I stated in the second part of my first charge : 

I am also well assured, by some highly respectable 

\ / 

persons, that many officers who were in the court, 
and who were unacquainted with either colonel 
Stewart or myself, declared their entire belief of 
the truth and justice of the accusations made in 


r 


















XIV 


INTRODUCTION 


■ — ■-- - — ■ -ir " . ». 

my first charge against colonel Stewart, from the 
questions that were put by me to my witnesses, 
and from the answers made to them. 

When I was obliged to stop in the prose¬ 
cution from the circumstances just specified, I 
particularly informed the court martial that I 
reserved some very material matters, which I in¬ 
tended to mention in the course of the ^comments 
I should make on colonel Stewart's defence: 
but my very earnest entreaty to be suffered to 

relate to the Court several matters which I con- 

’ • 

sidered of great importance to my case, was most 
peremptorily denied, upon' the plea of “ colonel 
tc Stewart’s not having called forward any evi- 
deuce.” 

Therefore whether the court martial was per¬ 
fectly warrantable in pronouncing that my accus- 


* I conceived that a prosecutor, before a court martial; 
had an unquestionable right to make such comments as he 
thought proper on the defence, and was unfortunately con¬ 
tinued in that supposition by the opinion of a professional 
gentleman of much respectability, who had had some expe¬ 
rience in court*, martial, and who attended as an assistant to 
me on the trial of colonel Stewart. 










INTRODUCE ION. 


XV 


ations were u malicious and groundless,’* and tViat 
I had endeavoured “ falsely to calumniate the 
character” of colonel Stewart, in a manner 
ee most highly injurious to the good of the ser- 
vice,” I shall leave to the decision of a candid 
and impartial public. But I must own it does 
not appear consonant with the solemn oath 
taken by each member individually, that he “ will 
not, upon any account, at any time whatsoever , 
(C disclose or discover the vote or opinion of any 
“ particular member of the court 'martial , unless 
required to give evidence thereof as a witness 
“ by a court of justice, in a due course of law 
and I must presume to observe, that it is scarcely 
possible for any military man to imagine that the 
court martial could have expected otherwise, than 

i 

that such a severe sentence (on the face of 
the minutes submitted to the royal inspection) 
upon my conduct would have occasioned the 
consequences which I am actually suffering, 
in the total loss of my company; and that, 
therefore, it seems to me very opposite to any 
acknowledged principle of justice or equity 









XVI 


INTRODUCTION. 


with which I am acquainted, actually to refuse 
my earnest prayer for permission to explain to 
the Court the sensations which compelled me to 
allege my complaints against colonel Stewart ; 
also to shew the cause of my having ventured upon 
the prosecution without a sufficiency of evidence 
to prove the facts upon which they were formed : 
then knowing that, from its oivn decisions, the 
court martial must have been extremely unin¬ 
formed upon my case, to pass an absolute decree 
which was to blast my character with an almost 
indelible odious imputation, and utterly to destroy 
my every prospect in a profession to which T had 
not only devoted a considerable portion of my 
little fortune, but in which I had passed upwards 
of ten years of the most valuable period of human 
life. 

In addition to the several very forcibly-corrobo¬ 
rating matters shewn in my comments on the de¬ 
fence, &c. I can adduce exceeding strong proofs 

of, at least, the conviction 1 must ever have had, 

x , 

that I had received colonel Stewart’s sanction to 
obtain a short leave of absence from my recruiting 













I 

\ 

\ 

INTRODUCTION. Xvii 

party, by the peculiar manner in which 1 returned 
to Guernsey upon that occasion ; I can shew, be¬ 
yond the possibility of doubt, that I hired the 
vessel in which I left Jersey, and detained her a 
day or two for the express purpose of conveying a 
large batch of volunteers to Guernsey with me; 
and that I also reserved some of my finest men 
from a detachment sent to iiead-quarters four 
or five days previous to my sailing, in order that 
I might appear with some little eclat upon my 
landing in Guernsey. And, as an important de¬ 
monstration of how little colonel Stewart really 
was desirous of promoting the discharge of the 
Commander in Chief’s orders, I must also inform 
the reader that I can evince that the * drummer 
was avowedly sent with me, as a troublesome in¬ 
cumbrance upon my very small detachment, 
merely to prevent his forming a matrimonial con¬ 
nexion of which the colonel disapproved. Colonel 
Stewart knew him to be a very idle and drunken 
young man, and of course was aware that he 


* See Extract of Regimental Orders, p. 48. 













XV111 


INTRODUCTION. 


would only have been of serious disservice to me 
at Jersey. 

As to the latter part of my first charge, it 
stands, upon the face of the proceedings of the 
general court martial, incontrovertibly proved by 
the very statement of colonel Stewart. It remains 
then, I conceive, only to weigh these facts, combined 
with the very strong chain of circumstantial testi¬ 
mony and positive evidence stated in the following 
copies of official documents, in support of my 
having received from colonel Stewart the sanction 
to obtain a leave of absence from my recruiting 
party, which the colonel strenuously denied after¬ 
wards to Sir Hew Dalrymple'; against the feeble 
tide of inconsistency and inaccuracy advanced by 
colonel Stewart in opposition to my assertion—to 
convince the impartial mind, that I have not been 
influenced by malice in exhibiting groundless 
charges against my late commanding officer. 

I canrlot persuade myself that there is a Briton, 
who has but the shadow of pretence to honest 
repute, who will declare that he believes our most 
benevolent Sovereign would have deprived me en- 












INTRODUCTION. 


xix 


tirely of the company which, with his Majesty’s ap¬ 
probation, I purchased in the 43d regiment, above 
ten years since ; would have abandoned me to la¬ 
bour under an ignominious sentence of a general 
court martial held on colonel Stewart ; with¬ 
out granting me an opportunity of vindicating 
my character, in exhibiting those charges, 
before a general court martial—had the Court 
noticed, in the close of their proceedings, 
the comments which were actually made by the 
president and other members, upon the amazing 
defection of memory shewn by those officers who 
composed Sir Hew Dalrymple’s staff in the island 
of Guernsey, where the occurrences complained 
of in my charges happened; and had the Court 
remarked, in their proceedings, the circumstance 
of my having intimated to the Court, when I was 
obliged to give up the prosecution, that I in¬ 
tended “ to state some important facts relating to 
“ my charges, in the comments I should make 
« on the defence of colonel Stewart;” and having 
been peremptorily silenced when I entreated to 
represent some considerations which I declared 














INTRODUCTION. 


rnyself to have conceived of the greatest im¬ 
portance to be communicated to the Court, 
upon the plea of colonel Stewart’s “ not having. 
“ called upon any witnesses in his defence.” 
Nor can I refrain from mentioning, that to main¬ 
tain that my conduct in urging my complaints has 
“ been already fully evidenced ” by the proceed¬ 
ings of the general court martial held on colonel 
Stewart (under the circumstances represented by 
me for the information of his Royal Highness), 
seems to me a mockery of justice unexampled in 
the pages of our history, and a burlesque upon 
equitable trial scarcely to be paralleled even by the 
shocking annals of ancient or modern revolution¬ 
ary despotism. 

I must, injustice to the Commander in Chief, 
inform the reader, that I have strong reasons to 
surmise that the mind of his Royal Highness has 
been much prejudiced against me through egregi¬ 
ous misrepresentations made by col. Stewart; and 
have been credibly informed that col. Stewart’s in¬ 
genuity has been exerted in stating the fact of his 
having indulged a ridiculous petulance in several 





INTRODUCTION. 


XXI 

* ■ 

times reprimanding me for not being on the pri¬ 
vate parade of my company, (after finding that I 
had no authority over the soldiers from not being 
supported in my duty, and meeting continual dis¬ 
respect from the commanding officer, relating 
to my company, in the eyes of the men,) to in¬ 
spect three or four files, sometimesjess, at the 
time it would have been necessary to inspect a 
company of forty or fifty files, previous to the 
appointed hour of parade. 

Not having been afforded, in compliance with 
my several earnest supplications made to the Com¬ 
mander in Chief, an opportunity of vindicating 
my conduct in preferring my complaints against 
colonel Stewart before a martial tribunal, I shall 
here beg leave to submit to the attention of the 
reader several very extraordinary facts, which de¬ 
cided me in a conception that it was an indispens¬ 
able duty to lay open my grievances to head¬ 
quarters; trusting that even the most prejudiced 
of my enemies will declare that longer to have 
remained silent, also not now to unveil to the 
public my case, as well as the following occurrences, 

* b 














INTRODUCTION. 


xxii 

in a true perspective, would be treason to his Ma¬ 
jesty, the state, and to myself. 

I have stated # , that previous to colonel Stew¬ 
art’s promotion to the 43d regiment I had had the 
honor of commanding (as the light infantry cap¬ 
tain) the light company ; that upon colonel Stew¬ 
art’s joining that corps I assured him of my being 
very ambitious to command a good light infantry 
company, and to inculcate a very high state of dis¬ 
cipline in my then company; likewise that my first 
wish was to obtain the approbation of himself, as my 
commanding officer, by discharging every part of 
my duty in a manner that should fully meet his 
wishes ; also, that I have taken every opportunity of 
earnestly repeating those wishes ; that I have mani¬ 
fested the most anxious desire effectually to prove 
to colonel Stewart my zeal, by fervent petitions 
for liberty to discipline and instruct my company 
in the light infantry exercise and manoeuvres; 
notwithstanding my entreaties were always in vain. 


* See Letter ts the honourable major-general Forbes, dated 
/ Feb. 5 , I SOL 


t 




INTRODUCTION. Xxiii 

and although I felt myself to have been very un¬ 
deservedly and most unhandsomely treated by co¬ 
lonel Stewart in the course of my regimental duty; 
that after having borne as far as possible a series 
of conduct which I could not but regard as highly 
oppressive, and in its effects extremely injurious 
to good order and military discipline, I assured 
colonel Stewart that I would, in a sense of duty to 
the service, lay his conduct towards me fully open 
to the Commander in Chief; and that the long 
procrastination of that intended measure was 
principally occasioned by colonel Stewart’s having 
gone abroad immediately afterwards, and by my 

v . 

having left the 43d regiment in the following 
month of November, in an ill state of health, 
produced by an agitation of mind ; and not hav¬ 
ing rejoined the 43d regiment until the 25th of 
January 1804. 

I must now add, that I was materially influ¬ 
enced in deferring my appeal to head quarters by 

\ 

a serious hope (which suggested itself to me after 
my nerves had been a little composed, and my 
health consequently somewhat recovered) that I 

*b 2 











XXIV 


INTRODUCTION. 


might perhaps be enabled to convince colonel 
Stewart forcibly of the great injustice of his con¬ 
duct to me, by throwing together some drawings 
which I had made in the course of my military 
studies, and afterwards for my own amusement, 
of the nineteen manoeuvres ordered by his Ma¬ 
jesty for the practice and guidance of his regiments 

of foot, and those commanded for the observance 

\ 

of the light infantry and ride corps, &c. which I 
had rather flattered myself might have been re¬ 
ceived as no frivolous indication of my having 
long borne a fervent zeal for that service of which 
I then had the honor of being a very humble 
member. Soon after I had indulged in this fruit¬ 
less scheme, being at that period on the recruit¬ 
ing service, I was ordered (in the month of June 
1803) to inspect out-pensioners, &c. at Marlbo¬ 
rough, and was afterwards appointed to receive 
balloted men, &c. for the royal army of reserve, 
at Marlborough and Chipping Norton : in the 
course of which duty I had an opportunity of mak¬ 
ing some experiments in the drill of those recruits 
placed under my charge, likewise in the exercise 





. 

INTRODUCTION. XXV 

of several newly enrolled corps of volunteers; 
which succeeded with such effect, that I thought 
it of considerable moment to communicate the 
result to his Royal Highness the Commander in 
Chief, and to the public : I therefore arranged a 
little military compilation, which I presumed to 
lay before the Commander in Chief, who was gra¬ 
ciously pleased to command colonel Clinton to ex¬ 
press to me “ his Royal Highness’s thanks for the 
“ communication of the same ; and to acquaint 
“ me, that he very much applauded the zeal which 
> * cc led me to the study of those essential points of 

<e service, by which I had been enabled so accu- 
“ rately to delineate them and further to say, 
that it was cr an example” which his Royal High¬ 
ness thought “ highly worthy of imitation.” 

As the result of those experiments of which I 
have just spoken consisted in a positive conviction* 
that several very important points in the rudimen- 
tal part of military movement, laid down in his 
Majesty’s Rules and Regulations (composed by 
general Sir David Dundas), had been egregiously 

*b 3 

/ 

‘ 













'I 



XXVI INTRODUCTION. 

misconceived throughout the army (although 
those orders had been published., and commanded 
for the observance of every corps throughout the 
British service, since the 1st of June 1792 ), emo¬ 
tions of great diffidence and of extreme delicacy 
towards the Commander in Chief, and to the se¬ 
nior part of the army, prevented the developement 
of my views, in a manner sufficiently pointed to 
render my motives, in offering that little compo¬ 
sition to the attention of the public, perfectly ob¬ 
vious ; wherefore he was pleased likewise to sig¬ 
nify, that he was not aware that the publication 
of that little work would prove of any essential 
service, the subject having been so fully treated of, 
and universally practised, by his Majesty’s Orders 
and Regulations published to the army. 

However I felt myself highly obliged by his 
Royal Highness’s gracious condescension ; which 
I imagined might have induced colonel Stewart at 
least to have acted in such a manner to me, as to 

have rendered my situation as a captain under his 

\ 

command not wholly intolerable. But, alas ! I 





INTRODUCTION 


xxvii 

soon had but to know that those hopes, which 
surely cannot be called unreasonable, were utterly 
vain and delusive. 

As soon as I reached Ashford (about the 25th 
of January 1804), the head quarters of the 43d 
regiment, I embraced the first moment to shew 
my little military compilation, with the letter from 
colonel Clinton, conveying the gracious senti¬ 
ments of the Commander in Chief thereon, &c. 
to several of colonel Stewart’s particular friends, 
from the motives I have before mentioned ; and I 

4 

took the first opportunity of submitting them to 
the inspection of colonel Stewart: but I found 
they merely afforded colonel Stewart an opportu¬ 
nity of exercising his powers of wit, by facetiously 

terming them at the mess, fC proofs of my being 

< 

“ insane and that, although the senior captain 

I X - 4 

of the 43d regiment, my company was affixed to 
the post in the battalion of the junior captain; 
and that I had only to expect from colonel Stew¬ 
art a continuation of the most highly improper 
treatment which I had suffered from him in the 

4 

island of Guernsey. 

. b 4 

/ 



/ 


/ 












t 


XXviii INTRODUCTION. 

/ 

I likewise met with indisputable proofs of a se¬ 
riously meditated plan to endeavour to effect at 
least my removal from the 43d regiment, through 
the influence which major general Sir John Moore 
is represented to hold with his Royal Highness the 
Commander in Chief. 

» 

Having been persuaded by several experienced 
officers, and by the impulse of my own very 
humble opinion, that, with some few addi¬ 
tions, my little military work might be pro- 

* . 

ductive of some good to his Majesty’s service, in 
the event of its being published, I resolved upon 

•• r * - 

sending it forth into the world ; and wishing to 
present it to the attention of an officer of such 

jr , • »- » - # 

high repute and interest as Sir John Moore has, 

T ' • ' / 

by his meritorious. services, justly acquired, I 
introduced several matters which I humbly 
thought would be found, upon inspection and 
trial, of great importance to the army ; and flat¬ 
tering myself with a hope that Sir John Moore 
would condescend to honor me with some matters 
that might essentially render my intended publi¬ 
cation interesting to the army at large, I waited 


t 




INTRODUCTION. XXIX 

upon colonel Stewart (very shortly after my 
joining at Ashford), and requested leave of ab¬ 
sence for two or three days, that I might go to 

/ 

Hythe, for the purpose of seeing the 52d regi¬ 
ment. At this time colonel Stewart was sending 

>» 

serjeants &c. to the 52d, to learn their methods of 

\ 

drill, &c. which were to be introduced in the 43d 
regiment. Colonel Stewart, with an air of seem¬ 
ing kind complaisance, assured me that he would 
forward my request to the honourable major gene¬ 
ral Forbes (who commanded at Ashford); but, in 
the course of a short conversation, I mentioned 
the object of my wishing to see the 52d regiment, 
which led colonel Stewart to ask whether I knew 
any officers of that corps ? I replied in the nega¬ 
tive ; and added, that “ having been acquainted 
“ with a brother * of general Moore's, I had 

^ N 

e( been recommended to the general; and had 
“ been informed that he had done me the honor 
“ of saying, that in case of my serving under his 
“ command, I should be treated with attention at 

j \ 

* A surgeon of great eminence, residing at present in 
Conduit-street, 














XXX 


INTRODUCTION. 


I 

cc his table ; and that he would aid any views I 
te might have towards promotion, as far as he 
“ should feel it in his power.’' This seemed to 
confound the colonel, for he began to talk with 
evident great confusion; attempted to persuade 
me that a line accurately formed according to a 
plan I had shewn him of dressing the companies 

when forming into line, must unavoidably advance 

* 

in disorder ; but that a mode of forming the line, 
which he had introduced from the French system 
(and which is now practised under the command 
of major general Sir John Moore), would ensure 
the greatest precision in the subsequent movement 
of that line; and concluded with informing me, 

\ / v v 1 • ‘ 

that, upon further reflection, he thought it neces¬ 
sary I should be at the regiment, to make up for 
the drills, &c. which I had lost in my absence from 
the regiment, and that therefore he could not ac¬ 
cede to my petition. A day or two afterwards, I 
requested leave to be absent from the parades for 
one day , for the same purpose, and was refused. 

I V'as informed, about the same time, by several 
officers, that when colonel Stewart joined the 43d 






INTRODUCTION. 


XXXI 


X 


regiment after bis leave of absence, he addressed 
himself to the officers at the mess, saying, that 

i 

(e the 43d regiment (being made a light infantry 
“ corps) was intended to be always with the 52d, 
“ and to be in every respect as the same; that, 
“ with regard to the officers, the system in the 
“ 52d (major general Sir John Moore’s) regiment 
“ was, that if general Moore disliked any officer, 
“ or thought him unfit for his corps, his name was 
u given in to the Duke of York, and that officer 
“ found himself (in the Gazette) removed from 
<e the 52 d regiment by promotion or otherwise. 1 * 
The colonel added, that there were some officers 
who then thought themselves safe and snug in the 
43d regiment, but who would find themselves 
mistaken when that regiment should be removed 
from Ashford, and get under the immediate com¬ 
mand of general Moore. 

I also learnt (from authority which I deemed 
perfectly deserving of full credence) that colonel 
Stewart, speaking of myself at the mess, said, 
“ there’s captain Jekyll, I wonder what general 
6 ‘ Moore will think of him ! I am sure he’ll not 














XXXII 


INTRODUCTION. 


“ think hiiji fit for any regiment These facts, 

I trust, will sufficiently shew the reader how far 

/ . ' 

•* Perhaps colonel Stewart might have intended to reflect 
on the hesitation in speech which I have in common and un¬ 
interesting conversation; indeed the colonel once intimated 
to me an intention of removing me from the command of my 
late flank company on that account; but he must remember 
my expressing my sentiments to him, in reply, concerning 
his not having supported me in my duty, and never having 
suffered me to exercise that company, and that I thought it 
necessary to inform him upon that subject, in a letter dated 
Guernsey, Aug. 13th, 1802, “ that I never found any diffi- 
“ culty in giving my words of command when on actual 
“ service; that 1 always gave my words of command in a 
“ very audible and clear voice ; that the motions of the bat- 
“ talion were never impeded or even retarded by my not being 
“ able to give my words of command in proper time; that if 
u I did not feel a thorough competency to command a light 
“ infantry company I should not aspire to the command of a 
battalion, and that therefore I should not voluntarily re- 
“ sign my company; but that if it were taken from me, I 
“ could not but consider it” (under the then existing circum¬ 
stances) “ a very serious grievance, and should state it as 
“ such to his Royal Highness the Commander in Chief.” 

I took that opportunity of acquainting colonel Stewart 
that the great embarrassment and hesitation I felt in speak¬ 
ing to him were the effect of the very warm and unhand- 
“ some manner I had frequently experienced when I had 
“ had occasion to address myself * to the colonel. 

I mentioned to colonel Stewart, the day after his first as¬ 
suming the command of the 43d regiment, that he would 





INTRODUCTION. XXxiil 

\ 

I was warrantable in declaring to the honor¬ 
able major general Forbes’s aid-de-camp, at 

* ‘ m i • 

never perceive-the slightest impediment in my giving the 
words of command, or instructions to the soldiers, when I 
felt at all confident upon what was about to be done, and that 
I was extremely impatient on that account to get my com¬ 
pany in high'order; that my hesitation did not proceed 
from any defect in the organs of speech, but from a trick ac- 
cn red in infancy, and continued in uninteresting converse 
from he influence of extreme diffidence. I trust that the 
c lest officers of the 43d regiment could prove, that (until my 
mind was literally distracted by the unpleasant and humili¬ 
ating conduct of colonel Stewart) when I have had a tempo¬ 
rary command of the battalion, I have given all my commands 
without any embarrassment, and in an exceeding strong and 
articulate voice. Lieutenant general Sir Hew Dalrymple 
and major general McDonald (who were stationed in Guern¬ 
sey when colonel Stewart joined the 43d regiment), I doubt 
not, could testify, that at every review or inspection of the 
regiment I gave all my words of command to my company 
perfectly well; that at the days of general exercise, when 
the several regiments were brigaded, (which were frequent,) 
I was always appointed to command the left divisions of bri¬ 
gades, as being the senior light infantry captain, and that 
upon those occasions they never observed any sort of impedi¬ 
ment in my speech; and perhaps major general Sir John 
Moore and his staff officers may assert, if called upon, that 
when I ivas under the command of general Moore , the manner 
in which I gave my instructions and words of command did 
not appear to them to render me “ unfit for any regiment in 
“ his Majesty’s service.” 









* 


XXXIV INTRODUCTION. 

the time of presenting my letter praying for a 
short leave to go to Hy the, that I was well assured 
that colonel Stewarts objection to my going to 
Hythe arose from a surmise that I should thereby 
defeat a scheme formed by the colonel to work 
my destruction as an officer; and in expressing a- 

i , - ' j > 

\ , _ 

firm belief, in my letter to major general Forbes, 

t , 

dated Feb. 7? J 804, “ that colonel Stewart’s mo- 
“ tives for refusing my application for leave to 
“ be absent from the parades of one day, were 
“ very opposite to any connected with the disci- 
u pline of his regiment 

I must beg leave to intrude a little further upon 
the indulgence of the reader, to relate’ several ex¬ 
traordinary facts in support of my declaration (in 
my letters to the honorable major general Forbes, 
dated Feb. 5th and 7th, 1804), that “ under the 
“ command of colonel Stewart no officer, however 

" zealous he may be to perform every duty in the 

\ 

i 

/■ 1 * % • 

* It seems to me still very extraordinary that I never was 
called upon to explain myself upon these remarkable as¬ 
sertions. 






I 


INTRODUCTION. XXXV 

^ V ‘ 

" • — • - .‘ 

/ 

“ most exemplary manner, can be at all comfort- 
“ able, or even feel that his honor or reputation 
“ would be safe, unless he became an object of 
“ his unjust partiality Very shortly after colo¬ 
nel Stewart joined the 43d regiment it was re¬ 
marked that the colonel adopted two or three of 
the junior * officers as confidential friends, and 
manifested his partiality to those gentlemen so 
far, that it was soon proverbially said, in the 
common conversation of the regiment, and indeed 
of the garrison, that “ the 43d regiment was 
“ commanded by the junior officers, and that the 
“ system was to make every thing as uncomfort- 
“ able as possible to the senior officers, in order 
“ to make promotion for the minions.” 

It was observed, that a very worthy field officer, 
whose length of honorable services in the 43d 
regiment had justly yielded him the esteem and 
confidence of all his brother officers, and whose 


* By senior officers I mean, upon this occasion, and in my 
letter to major general Forbes, dated Feb. 7, 1804-, the offi¬ 
cers of the longest standing in the regiment, and vice versa. 

i 

N 





/ 


I 


•l 

XXXvi INTRODUCTION. 

conduct in the command* of the 43d reg ; ment 
at a critical juncture so highly raised him in the 
estimation of the Commander in Chief lhat his 

■ i - - 

Royal Highness’s good opinion was strongly mani¬ 
fested in his promotion, was never consulted in 
regimental affairs, and was treated as a mere cy¬ 
pher by colonel Stewart. When ‘I (the senior 
captain) recommended a private to be advanced to 
a vacant corporalcy in my own company, I was 

answered, that (( an inquiry should be made whe- 

, • * 

“ ther he was a proper subject;” and, among ' 


* These minions were, upon all occasions, held up as ex¬ 
cellent officers, to the disparagement of the senior part of 
the regiment, who seemed always to feel that the commenda¬ 
tions lavished upon those gentlemen were meant to imply 
that no other officers in the regiment were at all worthy to 
be admitted in competition with them. 

The two principal favorites have successively been made 
adjuta'nts to the 43d regiment; yet major general Sir John 
Moore thought it necessary, when the 43d regiment got un¬ 
der his command, to lay aside the arms at all drills, to form 
the officers in squads, and instruct each individual, to the 
centinel, in every part of the ordered position of the soldier, 
and even in the side step, &c. which have been laid down as 
clearly and concisely as possible, in his Majesty’s Rules and 
Regulations, published to the army near thirteen years since. 









INTRODUCTION, 


xxx vn 


many other instances of the most pointed slight 
and marked disrespect, the appointment of my 
non-commissioned officers was usually at the in¬ 
stance of one or other of the favorites, several 
of which were highly injudicious, and extremely 
disparaging to some good soldiers of my company. 
I was assured by a subaltern of unimpeached ve¬ 
racity (who is now on the half-pay), that he had 
intended to purchase a company in the 43d regi¬ 
ment, and had actually lodged his money at the 
agent’s for the express purpose of succeeding to 
a captain who had signified an intention of selling 
out, but that he was so much disgusted with the 
unhandsome conduct of colonel Stewart towards 
him, that he determined to relinquish all further 
military pursuit, and retire upon half-pay; he 
stated, that he attributed colonel Stewart’s un¬ 
pleasant treatment to proceed from a wish to get 
him out of the regiment, with a view of promot¬ 
ing one of his minions. This officer also related a 
singular instance of astonishing conduct towards 
him ; he mentioned, that after he had signified an 
idea of retiring from active service, he earnestly 


c 







xxxvm 


INTRODUCTION. 


entreated colonel Stewart (through one of the 
field officers of the regiment) for a short leave of 
absence., on account of very urgent private affairs; 
the colonel said to him in answer, through the 
same channel, that cc if he would resign to go on 
half-pay he would get the desired leave of ab- 
sence for him.” That officer did consequently 
immediately present his resignation to colonel 
Stewart, in full confidence of then obtaining the 
desired leave, but which he never did get; in¬ 
deed, in spite of his remonstrance, I witnessed his 
being compelled to mount guard in the island of 
Guernsey, after colonel Stewart and all the officers 
of the 43d regiment, had seen his name announced 
in the daily newspapers as gazetted on half-pay, 
under the pretext of “ no official notification of 
“ his being absolutely gazetted having been re- 
ceived from the regimental agents,” although 
the recommendation of his successor, &c. had, in 
the usual’manner, passed through colonel Stewart. 
Another subaltern (whose assiduous discharge of 
his duty whilst with the regiment had frequently 
been particularly remarked by colonel Stewart and 








INTRODUCTION. 


XXXIX . 


by the whole corps) acquainted me, that having 
been recommended by general Smith, the colonel 
of the 43d regiment, to the Military Institution 
at High Wycombe, a notification had been sent to 
the commanding officer (colonel Stewart) by the 
adjutant general, that a vacancy having occurred 
it was his Royal Highness's pleasure that that 
officer should accordingly repair to High Wy- 
combe, his name having been inserted on the list 
at the instance of general Smith ; that to his great 
surprise he had found, from official document, 
that colonel Stewart was exceedingly piqued that 
his recommendation of the beforementioned fa¬ 
vorite had not been received by his Royal High¬ 
ness in preference, and had consequently strenu¬ 
ously urged every objection in his power to his 
going to the Institution, and had even represented 
him as a very unfit subject for it, and an officer not 
possessed of military talent. Since my dismission 
from the 43d regiment, colonel Stewart recom¬ 
mended that minion over the head of that same 
officer for promotion, who was accordingly ga¬ 
zetted for a vacant company in the 43d regiment; 

C 2 











xl 


INTRODUCTION, 


upon which that officer, feeling himself seriously 
aggrieved, represented k the circumstance very 
spiritedly to major general Sir John Moore, who 
inquired into the case, and whose sentiments upon 
that occasion were most forcibly displayed in his 
recommending that officer instantaneously to the 
Commander in Chief; who was pleased to cause 
him to be appointed to a vacant company in the 
40th regiment in the following Gazette. Colonel 
Stewart’s conduct to a brother of that same offfi 
cer was scarcely less astonishing; that young gen-* 
tleman was, also at the recommendation of gene¬ 
ral Smith, appointed to an ensigncy in the 43d 
regiment. Colonel Stewart and his minions took 
an almost immediate prejudice against him after 
his joining the 43d regiment, and the colonel 
wrote to general Smith, expressing surprise at his 
appointment; adding, that he was a puny boy, 
and, in fact, such a child, that it was the opinion 
of every officer present at the regiment that he was 
such a burlesque upon the service that no general 
officer would allow him to pass him at a review. 
General Smith, of course (not having seen this 




INTRODUCTION. 


xli 


young gentleman), from due respect to the sup¬ 
posed unanimous opinion of the officers of his 
regiment, immediately communicated the subject 
of colonel Stewart’s representation to the friends 
of that young officer, with a request that they 
would adopt the necessary measures for his being 
withdrawn from the 43d regiment; and added an 
assurance that as soon as he should be properly 
qualified, agreeable to regulation, he would take 
care to have him re-appointed to the 43d regi¬ 
ment. From peculiar delicacy to [lhe general his 
wishes were instantly complied with. Upon my 
joining the 43d regiment at Ashford, I was told of 
these things, and upon inquiry found that the 
officers had not given any opinion upon the sub¬ 
ject, and that they had never been called upon so 
to do; that, oh the contrary, several officers de¬ 
clared that they thought that officer had been 
cruelly and shamefully ill-treated by the colonel; 
and I also found that he was above the height re¬ 
quired by the Act of Parliament for a private sol¬ 
dier of the army of reserve, beyond the age speci¬ 
fied by the Commander in Chief’s regulations as 







V 


xlii INTRODUCTION. 

-——---- - —'— -■—*—— ———— 1 1 —— — —r 

sufficient for an officer to attain his first commis¬ 
sion, that he was very active, and perfectly well 
made, and that he had an uncommon military 
talent; for although he never had been permitted 
to join his company at exercise or parades, he took 
up several drawings (of mine) of some of the most 
difficult manoeuvres, and explained them in a 
manner that surprised me. An old officer of un¬ 
questionable veracity, belonging to the 43d regi¬ 
ment, also told me that colonel Stewart had made 
a false report of him to Sir Hew Dalrymple, and 
that he had consequently suffered an undeserved 
and severe reprimand from the lieutenant general. 

I solemnly avow, that I do not relate these 
matters from the slightest impulse of spleen to¬ 
wards colonel Stewart, hut that I am urged to 
bring them forward upon a most deliberate and 
dispassionate reflection that it is an insuperable 
duty to his Majesty’s service, my friends, and my¬ 
self, fully to evince the impressions which prompt¬ 
ed me to regard myself as irresistibly bound to 
stand forward with my complaints, and to shew 
that I have neither been actuated by malice or 






INTRODUCTION. 


xliii 


-- . -■ . »• . — 

falsehood in exhibiting my specific charges, or in 
any thing I have asserted in any of my statements 
of colonel Stewart’s conduct in his command of 
the 43d regiment; also, that it is further a solemn 
obligation towards God and man, to develope to 
the public a system of iniquitous oppression which 
must soon extinguish every spark of manly senti¬ 
ment in those officers who should feel the service 
(in which such abuses were prevalent) tolerable; 
and being convinced that the operations of an army 
commanded by officers who did not possess the 
most exalted sense of integrity and the most pure 
sentiment of honor, when opposed to a well- 
organized force, could only be marked with in¬ 
stability, confusion, and disgraceful retreat. 

I must forewarn the reader that in the following 

• v / 

documents he must expect much tedious repeti¬ 
tion, which I lament (for his sake) I could not 
abridge in the sequel. In my subsequent letters 

r 

to the Commander in Chief several matters which 
are fully detailed in my statement to lieutenant 
colonel Gordon, dated 6th of November, are re¬ 
peated, from the circumstance of my having con- 











xliv INTRODUCTION. 

ceived, by a conversation with lieutenant colonel 
Gordon, at the Horse Guards* that it was proba¬ 
ble that statement, &c. might not have been pe¬ 
rused by his Royal Highness. I have arranged 
those documents according to the order of their 
dates. N. J, 





/ 


f i 









/ 








VINDICATION, 

$V. S(c, SCc, 


b'rom iV. Jekj/ll, hsq. to the Hon. Major Gen. Forbes . 

Ashford, Feb. 5, 1S04. 

I have the honor to acquaint you, that, with 
extreme concern, and even with great reluctance, 
I feel myself impelled by a sense of my duty to 
his Majesty's service to represent to you the most 
scandalous and infamous conduct of colonel 
Stewart, highly unbecoming the character of an 
officer and a gentleman, which I have experienced 
from him in the execution of my duty during his 
command of the 43d regiment; and to pray that 
you would be pleased to lay the same before his 
Royal Highness the Commander in Chief. 

I declare upon my word and honor that I am 

* 

not actuated by any views or motives of avenging 
private animosity in making this appeal, but that 
I am urged to it solely by a most thorough con- 


B 














•2 


THE VINDICATION OF 




viction that under the command of colonel Stew¬ 
art no officer, however zealous he may be to 

i 

perform every duty belonging to his rank in the 
most exemplary manner, can be at all comfort¬ 
able, or even feel that his honor or reputation 
would be safe, unless he became an object of his 
most unjust partiality ; and that a continuation ol 
the general tenor of colonel Stewart’s most 
highly improper conduct towards myself, must be 
attended with the most serious consequences, to 
the prejudice of good order and military disch 
pline. 

I relate the following circumstance the first; as 
the principal part of colonel Stewart’s most 
unmilitary and unwarrantable conduct to me, con¬ 
cerning my late company, occurred subsequently. 

On the 22d of February 1802, lieutenant 
general Sir Hugh Dairymple received an order 
from his Royal Highness the Commander in Chief 

i 

to cause a recruiting party from the 43d regiment, 
under the command of a captain, to go forthwith 
from Guernsey to Jersey. My name being the 
first upon the regimental roster for detachment 
duty, I was accordingly directed to take charge 







N. JEKYLL, ES&. 


I 


3 


of the party, and to proceed by the same packet 
which conveyed the order. 

Colonel Stewart was aware that the party’s in¬ 
tended object was to re-engage men from the 
loyal Irish fencibles for the 43d regiment, upon 
terms of general service. The colonel, when hek 
gave me the order, and many times afterwards^ 
said to me, that he was determined not to take a 
single man from that corps whom he could in any 
manner avoid; and previous to my departure he 
frequently gave me the most positive injunctions 
Uot to enlist more than four serjeants, six corpo¬ 
rals, two drummers, and twenty privates, besides 
a few particular performers of the band, from that 
regiment; likewise he was pleased to express to 
me often, that he was sensible my mind must very 
naturally have been in a state of great anxiety and 
uneasiness on account of a case of extreme family 
distress, and that I had his permission to apply to 
general Gordon for a short leave of absence as 
soon as I had passed three or four days at Jersey. 

In the course of a week I enlisted near an hun¬ 
dred of the flower of the loyal Irish fencibles; 
and by that time I found there was no probability 

e 2 









'4 


THE VINDICATION OF 


of procuring above four or five men more, except 
those who had engaged themselves to follow their 
comrades into the 43d regiment. Feeling confi¬ 
dent that a continuance of the very zealous exer¬ 
tions of my subaltern (lieutenant Delisle) would 
obviate the possibility of any prejudice recurring 
to his Majesty’s service through my absence for a 
short time from my detachment, I stated to lieu¬ 
tenant general Gordon the urgency of the cir¬ 
cumstance for which I wished a short leave of 
absence, and represented my having had the 
sanction of colonel Stewart to make the applica¬ 
tion ; upon which the commander in chief of 
Jersey was pleased to grant me leave for a fort¬ 
night. After having passed ten days at Jersey I 
returned to Guernsey, for the purpose of convey¬ 
ing to England an amiable wife, whom I had left 
there in a most deplorable and dangerous state of 
health. 

Upon my landing in Guernsey I was extremely 
astonished to learn from brigade major Barclay 
(now major of the 52d regiment) that lieutenant 
general Sir Hugh Dairympie had ordered me 
under an arrest, from colonel Stewart’s having re- 




N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


5 


ported to him that I was quitting my detachment 
without his leave, and contrary to his particular 
orders. Not conceiving it possible that the co¬ 
lonel could have been capable of such most 
treacherous and most infamous conduct as the 
following day betrayed him to have been guilty of, 
I imagined there must have been some misunder¬ 
standing on the subject between the lieutenant 
general and colonel Stewart. 

However a momentary reflection upon the very 
serious effect an eclaircissement would occasion 
to the colonel, and that perhaps it might serve to 
involve the 43d regiment again under the most 
dreadful weight of his Majesty’s displeasure, in- 
duced me to resolve to take upon myself the con¬ 
sequence of Sir Hugh Dalrymple’s displeasure, 
trusting that in the event of any unfavorable report 
being made to his Royal Highness the Commander 
in Chief/ the testimony which I considered lieute¬ 
nant general Gordon would bear of the zeal with 
which I had acquitted myself in the duty of re- 
engaging the men of the loyal Irish fencibles 
for general service, would remove any prejudice 
which it might at first create in the breast of his 

b 3 








6 


THE VINDICATION OF 


Koyal Highness against me. I suffered my leav¬ 
ing Jersey to appear as if it had been through a 
mistake (of mine) of colonel Stewart’s intention ; 
and upon the colonel’s making a representation to 
that effect I was released from my arrest; but on 
the next day Sir Hugh Dairy mple gave me a most 
severe and galling reprimand, and threatened to 
report me to his Royal Highness the Commander 
in Chief; after which, colonel Stewart, with all 
possible solemnity, declared upon his word and 
honor, that he had never uttered a syllable by 
which I could have thought , even for a moment , 
that he would have given me leave to return from 
my detachment, unless I had been properly re^ 
lieved by the consent of the general; and likewise 
added, that no consideration whatever would have 
induced him to act so contrary to the sense he 
had of his duty to the spirit of orders proceeding 
from his Royal Highness the Commander in Chief. 

The most unmilitary and unwarrantable con- 

I , , . 

duct of colonel Stewart concerning my late 
company (the ci-devant light infantry *) would 


. * 

* The 43d is now made a light infantry regiment. 


\ 




N. JEKYLLj ESQ. 


7 


.. . " — 

/ 

most fully justify my assertions against him. It 
was evidently designed to defeat every anxious 
wish and endeavor of mine to promote a spirit of 
emulation and a high state of discipline in my 
company, by never affording me that support in the 
duty of my company which is absolutely necessary 
to the existence of good order and military disci¬ 
pline ; and by encouraging the non-commissioned 
officers and privates to disregard my authority 
as their captain, and to disobey all my orders, 
with a view of affording him a feasible excuse for 
depriving me of that company, under the specious 
pretext of my appearing unfit for that service, 
that he might gratify an unjust partiality. Not¬ 
withstanding, from the time I had the honor of 
first addressing colonel Stewart as my command¬ 
ing officer, in the month of March 180 ], I have 
taken every opportunity of assuring him that I 
was very ambitious to command a good light in¬ 
fantry company, such as I was extremely desirous 
of making mine; also that my first wish was to 
execute every part of my duty in a manner which 
should meet his entire approbation; and I have 
frequently petitioned most earnestly for leave to 









s 


THE VINDICATION OF 


discipline and instruct my company in the light 
infantry exercise and manoeuvres, but always in 
vain . 

I am confident that had colonel Stewart sup¬ 
ported me properly in my duty, and encouraged a 
spirit of emulation in the 43d regiment, every 
duty would have been executed by myself, and by 
my company, in an exemplary manner. I trust 
that declaration will not appear presumptuous 
when I assert that I can prove, that although my 
mind was filled with that abhorrence and indig¬ 
nation which colonel Stewart’s most shameful 
conduct could not have failed to create, I con¬ 
tinued those assurances, and to request permission 
to discipline my company, even until the month 
of October 1802 , about which time (a few days 
previous to colonel Stewart's going on leave of 
absence) the colonel ordered major M‘Kenzie to 

displace me from the 43d light infantry, upon 

■« 

the grounds of my “ not appearing” to him ** fit 
“ for that service.” 

I told colonel Stewart upon that occasion, that 
I had incessantly, from my first bearing a commis¬ 
sion, felt a great ambition to command a good light 
infantry company, but that the most unhandsome 




N. JEKYL*L, ESQ. 


9 


treatment which I continually experienced from 
him concerning my company had once urged 
me so far as to resolve upon giving up my 
flank company; yet that, upon further consider¬ 
ation, I could not reconcile my mind passively to 
bear his most unjust and oppressive conduct, and 
pledged to him my word and honor that I would 
lay my grievances, in humble supplication for re¬ 
dress, before his Royal Highness the Commander 
in Chief. 

I think it proper to state, that so long a pro¬ 
crastination of this intended measure has been 
principally occasioned by colonel Stewart’s having 
gone abroad immediately afterwards, and by my 
having left the 43d regiment in the month of 
November, in an ill state of health, occasioned by 
a depressed and agitated mind; and not having 
joined the 43d regiment since that time, until the 
25th of January ultimo. 

In proof of my assertions of colonel Stewart’s 
conduct relating to the discipline of my company, 
I will only briefly mention the following circum¬ 
stance : 

A short time before colonel Stewart went on 
leave of absence, my company formed part of a 





/ 


iO THE VINDICATION OF 

-— ~ ■■■■- - — bW - ~—— .. - ■ ■■ - 7 ' 

considerable detachment of the 43d regiment 
which was placed under the command of major 
Mdvenzie, who found the light infantry in 
such an extraordinary relaxed state that the 
men appeared to treat all my orders, and the au¬ 
thority of my non-commissioned officers, in 
almost total disregard ; and that frequently, even 
with the greatest exertions of my serjeants and 

r 

corporals, I could not get my company out of their 
barrack rooms under arms until nearly half an 
hour after the drum had heat for the parades 
Major M‘Kenzie inquired of myself the cause of 
such very great insubordination ; in reply I de¬ 
clared, that it was the effect of colonel Stewart’s 
never having afforded me any support in the duty 
of my company ; but that, on the contrary, I had 
continually experienced such extreme disrespect 
from him, befoie the men, that they dared to 
treat all my orders with contempt, knowing they 
would be suffered to do it with impunity by the 

* I had actually given out orders to my company, in the 
company's order book, to turn out under arms, for a private 
inspection, half an hour before the beat of the warning 
drum, (the, signal for the battalion to turn out under arms,) 
and even at that very time ineffectually used my utmost ex- 
ertipns to enforce obedience to that order. 


/ 





N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


11 


commanding officer. Major M f Kenzie repeated 
tnat report, of course, to colonel Stewart, who 
consequently caused me to appear in his quarters 
before the major; yet the colonel did not express 
surprise, or even reprimand me for presuming to 
advance such a very serious charge to his dishonor 
as my commanding officer. 

Should his Koyal Highness the Commander in 
Chief think proper to cause an investigation into 
my grievances, I am confident it will appear that, 
from a mistaken zeal for the interest and credit of 
the 43d regiment, to preserve the appearance of 
an united zeal and perfect harmony reigning in 
the 43d regiment, 1 have even descended far be¬ 
neath that dignity which a man ought to support 
in every situation in life ; and that colonel Stewart 
has not been actuated towards me by a zeal of 
promoting the good and the interest of his 
Majesty’s service. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your most obedient, 

And most humble servant* 
NATHANIEL JEKYLL, 
Capt. 43d regiment of light infantry. 


i 







12 


THE VINDICATION OF 


From N. Jckyll , Esq. to the Hon. Major Gen. Forbes. 

SIR, Ashford, Feb. 5, 1804-. 

I have the honor most humbly to address 
you in earnest solicitation for leave to be absent 
for two days from Ashford, to go to Hythe, from 
motives of wishing to contribute, in some small 
degree, to the general good of his Majesty’s 
service. 

I beg leave to inform you, that the cause of my 
presuming thus to step out of the usual and regu¬ 
lar channel arises from colonel Stewart’s having 
refused * my most particular request even for 
leave to be absent from the parades of one day 
for that purpose. 

I have the honor, &c. 

N. JEKYLL. 


* See Introduction. 




N. JEKVLL, ESQ. 


13 


From the Hon. Major Gen. Forbes to N. Jckyll , Esq. 

Ashford, Feb. 6th, 1804. 

Major General Forbes has received captain 
Jekyll’s application for leave of absence, and the 
accompanying representation; and in reply has 
to state, that during the whole course of his ser¬ 
vice, he has not met with any thing of the kind 
which has appeared to him altogether so improper, 
so unmilitary, or which could betray so total a de¬ 
ficiency or ignorance of the most essential prin¬ 
ciples of the military profession, as the application 
and representation contained in the papers which 
have been submitted to him by captain Jekyll. 

With regard to the application, and the grounds 
on which it is made to major general Forbes, it 
would appear that captain Jekyll has the pre¬ 
sumption to oppose his opinion on points con¬ 
nected with the discipline of his regiment, to that 
of his commanding officer, and to express a wish 
to be permitted to act accordingly, under the idea 
that major general Forbes would acquiesce in a 





14 


THE VINDICATION OF 


measure so entirely subversive of discipline.—He 
has therefore only to say in reply to it^ that he 
considers it not only inadmissible, but highly cen¬ 
surable in every point of view ; and that the pre¬ 
text of a wish to contribute to the benefit of the 
service, when unsanctioned by or in opposition 
to the commanding officer, cannot in the least 
degree palliate such a breach of military propriety 
and subordination.—In considering the represen¬ 
tation of facts alleged by captain Jekyll in sup¬ 
port of the charge of scandalous and infamous 
conduct on the part of colonel Stewart, major ge¬ 
neral Forbes has been chiefly astonished to find a 
charge of so serious a nature, and couched in such 
gross and degrading terms, brought by any officer 
against another, particularly a superior one* with 
so little matter to support or justify it, as that 
which is stated by captain Jekyll in his represen¬ 
tation ; the whole of which rather tends to prove, 
that he has been inclined to act in opposition to 
the views and intentions of his commanding offi¬ 
cer, (in one instance, perhaps, from misapprehen- 
' 

sion, viz. that of his returning to Guernsey with¬ 
out being relieved,) and thereby counteracted the 










N. }£kYlL, ESO. 


isT 

benefit of the service, which he pretends it is his 
wish to support; and which wish, on his part, he 
gives as one of the motives of his representation to 
major general Forbes* 

On a consideration of the whole matter, major 
general Forbes lias been so strongly impressed 
with a conviction of the impropriety of captain 
Jekyll’s representation, and the grounds on which 
he has made it, that he would have thought it his 
duty to lose no time in stating the circumstances 
attending it to general Sir David Dundas, in order 
that an immediate investigation might have been 
made, the result of which, from every thing he 
knows at present, he conceives would be the most 
severe animadversion on the conduct of captain 
Jekyll ; but having observed that captain J. ac¬ 
knowledges in the representation, that he has at 
times suffered much anxiety and agitation of mind 
on the subject of it, and conceiving it probable 
that the same feelings have attended his commit¬ 
ting the statement to paper, major general Forbes 
has taken the trouble to reply at some lengthy 
notwithstanding his disapprobation of it, in the 
hope that what he has said, and a more dispas- 








16 


THE VINDICATION OF 


/ 


sionate view of the matter, will enable captain 
Jekyll to see, and of course to acknowledge, his 
error in urging his own feelings and grievances, 
of whatever extent and nature they may be, in 
excuse for such a breach of his duty, as that of 
resisting his commanding officer in his regulations 
for the interior management and benefit of his 
corps, and of bringing so serious and gross a 
charge against him on grounds so inadmissible. 

If captain Jekyll persists in his desire of laying 
his representation before his Royal Highness the 
Commander in Chief, major general Forbes will 
think it his duty to take the necessary steps ac¬ 
cordingly through the commander in chief of the 
district: but from the view he already has of the 
matter, he cannot flatter captain Jekyll with the 
probability of the result being otherwise than un¬ 
favourable to him. 

J. .FORBES, major general* 









N. JEKYLL, ESQ, 


11 


From N. Jekyll , Esq. to the Hon. Major Gen. Forbes. 

SIR, Ashford, Feb. 7, 1804. 

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt 
of your note of yesterday, and to beg leave most 
humbly to assure you. Sir, that I lament a mis¬ 
conception of my intents should have created 
those unfavourable sentiments of me which you 
were pleased to express. 

I hope most earnestly to evince, upon every 
occasion, an ardent zeal for the support of mili- 
litary discipline, and the preservation of the high¬ 
est degree of subordination ; which will obviate 
any supposition that I would, upon any conside¬ 
ration, wittingly act contrary to the spirit of any 
wishes of my commanding officer, which would 
have for a basis a zeal of promoting discipline, or 
the general good of the service. Nothing could 
have been more foreign to my ideas, than presum¬ 
ing to oppose my opinion, in points connected 
with the discipline of my regiment, to that of the 
commanding officer ; therefore I beg leave to 
assure you, Sir, that when I presumed to address 

c 








18 


l 


THE VINDICATION OF 


you ill solicitation of leave of absence for two 
clays, to go and see the 52d regiment at Hythe, 
I was not actuated by any views of private grati¬ 
fication ; and that I was induced to step so far 
out of the usual and regular channel, by a firm 
belief, from many circumstances, that colonel 
Stewart’s motives for refusing my application for 
leave to be absent from the parades of one day, 
were very opposite to any that, are connected with 
the discipline of his regiment *. 

I am confident I can most fully prove, that 
colonel Stewart did repeatedly give me leave, pre¬ 
vious to my going to Jersey, to apply to lieutenant 
general Gordon for a short leave cf absence (as 
soon as I had passed three or four days with my 
recruiting party in that island); that, in direct 
contradiction to the commands of his Royal High¬ 
ness the Commander in Chief, colonel Stewart 
> * * — « 

gave me the strongest injunctions not to enlist 
more than a very small limited number of men 
from the loyal Irish fencibles ; that when lieute¬ 
nant general Sir Hugh Dalrymple, hearing of my 


* See Introduction. 








N n . jekyll, esq. 


IV 

=* 


being about to return from Jersey, expressed sur¬ 
prise and disapprobation at a measure he consi- 
dered as militatingagainst the spirit of orders pro¬ 
ceeding through him from his Royal Highness 
the Commander in Chief; colonel Stewart did, 
in a scandalous and infamous manner, unbecom¬ 
ing the character of an officer and a gentleman, 
knowingly make a false report to the commander 
in chief' of Guernsey, that I was leaving my de¬ 
tachment without his permission and contrary to 
his particular orders, with a view of exonerating 
himself from the displeasure of lieutenant general 
Sir Hugh Dalrymple : likewise, that even when 
colonel Stewart had very great cause to appre¬ 
hend that lieutenant general Sir Hugh Dalrymple 
intended to make a serious report, to my preju¬ 
dice, to his Royal Highness the Commander in 
Chief, colonel Stewart did not render that justice 
which every principle of honor and equity should 
have urged him to—and which it was his most 
particular duty to have afforded an inferior officer, 
who should naturally look up to his commanding 
officer as the guardian of his honor and in¬ 


terest. 












20 


THE VINDICATION OF 


Although lieutenant general Sir Hugh Dai¬ 
ry m pie did not make any report upon my returh 
from Jersey, and was afterwards convinced that I 
had had the sanction of my regimental command¬ 
ing officer to request general Gordon’s leave of 
absence,—some expressions of colonel Stewart’s, 
and a current report in the 43d regiment, yield 
me very strong grounds for conjecture, that the 
lieutenant general, through the purest possible 
zeal for the interest of his Majesty’s service, was 
influenced by the misrepresentations of colonel 
Stewart to mention my name unfavourably to 
his Royal Highness the Commander in Chief. 

I am well informed of several instances of co- 
lonel Stewart’s most unhandsome conduct towards 
other officers ; which, added to the general tenor 
of his most degrading and mortifying treatment 
o myself in my regimental duty, I humbly con¬ 
ceive would justify my assertion, that no officer 
could feel that his honor and reputation were 
safe, or could be comfortable, unless he should 
become a particular favorite. 

i declare r\ the word and honor of an officer 

/ 

and a* gentleman, that if the sentiments of the se- 







N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 



£ior part of my brother officers * appeared op¬ 
posite to those which I now presume to express, 


* Several officers of the 43d regiment separately informed 
'fne, that major McKenzie (now lieutenant colonel of the S 1st 
regiment) had signed a paper, framed by himself, expressing 
opposite sentiments ; and (without consulting the general opi¬ 
nion of the corps collectively, although he had solicited and 
obtained the honourable major general Forbes’s permission 
to assemble the officers for that purpose) had caused it to be 
signed by all the officers then present with the 43d regiment, 
and had forwarded it to the Commander in Chief: likewise, 
that they had subscribed to it, although they considered the 
thing in itself altogether unjust, and that the manner in 
which it was set on foot and conducted was both unusual and 
very unmilitary, from a conviction that an individual’s with¬ 
holding his signature would have rendered me no probable 
service, and might have made their own situations exceedingly 
uncomfortable —but that they felt it incumbent to apprize me 
of such a transaction having occurred, in order that I might 
guard as far as possible against the consequences they ima¬ 
gined it was calculated to produce to me, 

The sensations under which that paragraph was written 
are clearly evinced in my letter to his Royal High¬ 
ness the Commander in Chief, dated Nov. 12th, 1S04; and 
how far such sentiments may have been justifiable, will per¬ 
haps forcibly appear by the Introduction, and also by several 
extraordinary circumstances related in my letters to the 

Commander in Chief, &c. v 

I cannot but think it surprising that I never could procure 
a sight of that paper, signed by the officers then present with 
the 43d regiment, although I particularly entreated lieute¬ 
nant colonel Gordon, the Commander in Chiefs secretary, for 





22 


THE VINDICATION OF 

__ ... t ... . 


the interest I feel for the credit and good of the 
43d regiment would have prevented my address¬ 
ing the statement of my grievances to you. Sir. 

With a full conviction that I must seal the pe¬ 
riod of my military existence, in the event of my 
not substantiating my charges against colonel 
Stewart, I most humbly and earnestly pray that 
you would be pleased to lay this letter, with my 
statement of the 5th instant, before general Sir 
David Dundas, for the information of his Royal 
Highness the Commander in Chief. 

I have the honor to be. Sir, 

Your most obedient and 

most humble servant, 

NATH. JEKYLL, 

Capt. 43d regiment of light infantry. 

a copy of it, in a letter dated October 4th, 1804; and not¬ 
withstanding I repeatedly intimated to several officers of the 
43d regiment an earnest wish to be made acquainted with 
its contents. 

The solicitude I still feel for the credit of the 43d regi¬ 
ment would wholly suppress the publication of this remark¬ 
able fact, did not an ardent zeal for the interest of his Ma¬ 
jesty's service prompt me to regard it an indispensable duty 
to unfold the evil effects of the extreme absolute power ancl 
influence yielded to some commanding officers in the present 
military system. 










N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


23 


= 


• y " 

from the lion. Major Gen. Forbes to X. Jela/ll, Esq. 

' . * • . r 

i C'\ r ; \ 

SIR, Ashford, Feb. 14, 1804. 

- 

Having laid your representations and charge 
against colonel Stewart, with a copy of my answer 
to the first of them, before general Sir David Dun- 
das, I have received his commands to inform you, 
that he entirely concurs in the sentiments ex¬ 
pressed in my answer to your first representation ; 
and that he considers your conduct to be not only 
inconsiderate, but highly reprehensible, and sub¬ 
versive of subordination.—Under this impression, 
the general has directed me to recommend to you, 
to lose no time in making ample reparation and 
apology to colonel Stewart, your commanding 
officer, for the unqualified language which you 
have applied to him.—Failing of which, he will 
deem it necessary to lay the entire correspon¬ 
dence before his Royal Highness the Commander 
in Chief. 

I have only to add to the above, that if you 
accede to what the general has recommended, it 

c 4 









24 


THE VINDICATION OF 


will be necessary that your apology contain a com¬ 
plete retractation of the charges which you have 
brought against your commanding officer, and 
that it be expressive of your conviction of their 
impropriety and injustice, as well as of your wish 

to obtain his pardon for your unguardedness in 

/ 

using them : and further, as the representations 
have been made by ypu to me, and as the nature 
of them is known probably to every officer of the 
43d regiment, it is also necessary that such apo- 
logy be made in presence of the officers of the A3d 
regiment, and that I should witness it. 

I shall be glad to be informed of your deter¬ 
mination as soon as convenient; and have the 
honor to be. Sir, 

Your most obedient humble servant, 

J. FORBES, Maj, Gep* 




N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


25 


From N. Jekyll , Esq. to the Hon. Major Gen. Forbes. 

SIR, Ashford, Feb. 14-, 1S0!<, 

I have had the honor of receiving your letter 
of this day, a few minutes since. 

I beg leave most humbly to acknowledge, with 
an unfeigned gratitude, the consideration which 
general Sir David Dun das, and you, Sir, have 
condescended to evince towards me; but with 
all possible deference for the sentiments the com¬ 
mander in chief of this district, and you, have 
been pleased to express, I lament that I have to 
acquaint you, that I cannot feel it consistent with 
my honor and feelings, as an officer or as a gen¬ 
tleman, to offer any kind of apology to colonel 
Stewart, or to wish to retract either of those 
charges which were dictated by a sense of my 
duty to his Majesty’s service, 

1 am convinced by your note of the 6th instant, 
and by your letter of this date, that my application 
to you for two days’ leave of absence was unmili¬ 
tary wherefore I beg leave to inform you, that 






26 


THE VINDICATION OF 


I am desirous of making every necessary apology 
or concession to yourself, for an error which I 
have fallen into through an excessive ardent zeal 
to promote, in some degree, the general good of 
the service. I have the honor to be. Sir, 

Your most obedient and 

most humble servant, 

NATH. JEKYLL, 
Capt. 43d light infantry. 


On the 26 th of February 1804, a letter was 
shewn to me by the honorable major general 
Forbes and colonel Campbell (the assistant adju¬ 
tant general for the southern district), from major 
general Calvert (the adjutant general to general 
Sir David Dundas), acknowledging the receipt of 
the general’s letter, accompanied by the originals 
of the several preceding copies of letters from the 
honorable major general Forbes, and from my¬ 
self. 

And stating, that he (the adjutant general) was 
directed to acquaint general Sir David Dundas, 






/ 


-N.; JEKYLL, ESQ. 27 

that u His Royal Highness the Commander in 
“ Chief very highly applauded the judicious con- 
u duct of the general, and of the honorable major 
“ general Forbes, [relating to mv stated griev- 
“ ances] towards me, who appeared very little 
“ sensible of the great forbearance and inclulg- 
? c ence I had hitherto experienced.”—Also to de¬ 
sire that the general would “ call upon me, to 
<c explain fully the matters upon which I grounded 
my complaints ; and to inform me, that in case 
u of my not establishing my charges, in the event 
“ of their being laid before a general court mar- 
“ tial, the consequences would operate forcibly 
“ against myself.” 

Likewise ordering general Sir David Dun- 

i 

das to “ intimate to colonel Stewart, that he 
“ (the colonel) had not at all suffered in the 
“ esteem and confidence of His Royal Highness 
u the Commander in Chief, by any thing alleged 
(C to him by me 

* A copy of tins letter was sent to me by the honorable 
major general Forbes ; but a few days afterwards, the major 
general’s aid-de-camp came to my lodgings, and said “ he 
“ w«ts desired by general Forbes to beg that I would let 






28 


THE VINDICATION OF 



From N. Jekyll y Esq. to Colonel Clinton. 

SIR, Ashford, March 1, 1304. 

I cannot express the most unfeigned deep 
regret and painful sensations occasioned in my 
mind by the most unpleasant subject which, at 


“ him have the copy of the adjutant general’s letter to gene- 
te ral Sir David Dundas, as he (the major general) particu- 
“ larly wished to see it.”—And added, <e that either the 

same, or a copy, should be returned.” However, I was 
not permitted to have it again ; and the honorable major 
geueral Forbes afterwards informed me, that he did not con¬ 
ceive himself authorised to allow me to have a copy of that 
letter in my possession. 

Upon my expressing sentiments of the most profound re- 
*pect and duty towards the Commander in Chief, but de¬ 
claring that I could net reconcile my mind to offer any kind 
of apology to colonel Stewart for having made my complaint 
against him ; I was commanded by the honourable major 
general Forbes to “ deliver in immediately, without comment, 
“ my specific charges, together with the names of my evir 
*' dencesC And in vain did I state, that my mind was at 
that period so much agitated as to be wholly unfit for that 
arduous task ; and also implore the aid of some experienced 
military friends, and of counsel, to enable me to draw my 
charges properly. 

N, J, 








c 


N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


29 


this most awful crisis, urges me to presume to 
address this letter to you. 

I have the honor to inform you, that, in obedi¬ 
ence to an order of general Sir David Dundas, 
communicated yesterday by major general Forbes, 
to give in directly, without comment, my charges 
against colonel Stewart, and the names of my 
evidences , I have subscribed to two specific 
charges, which, I apprehend, are this day trans¬ 
mitted to the head quarters of the district, for the 
information of his Royal Highness the Com¬ 
mander in Chief. However, I beg leave to ac¬ 
quaint you, that when I first presented the state¬ 
ment of my regimental grievances to the honora¬ 
ble major general Forbes, I fully imagined I 
should have been required to explain, in detail, 
the circumstances upon which I presumed to form 
my several assertions and charges against colonel 
Stewart; and I hoped to have been enabled to 
consult some experienced military friends, and to 
have had the aid of counsel, previous to being 
obliged to deliver my final specific charges .— 
Wherefore I am now induced, by further consi¬ 
deration, to pray that I may be permitted to 


/ 










( 


30 THE VINDICATION OF 

withdraw the charges which I have preferred 
against, colonel Stewart, at least until I can state 
clearly and concisely some material circumstances 
which I humbly consider as necessary to afford 
his Royal Highness the Commander in Chief, a 
perfect idea of my most painful and distressing 
situation with colonel Stewart; and of some fur¬ 
ther matters, which, I trust, his Royal Highness 
will not deem improper that I should at present 
lay before him.—For which purpose, I most ear¬ 
nestly implore, that his Royal Highness the Com¬ 
mander in Chief would be pleased to grant me a 
week’s leave of absence from my regiment, that l 
may be enabled, by the assistance of my counsel, 
to lay before him a full and concise statement of 
some facts which I am confident will remove the 

i 

unfavorable sentiments his Royal Highness at pre¬ 
sent entertains to my prejudice, from the matters 
which have hitherto been submitted to him. 

At the same time, I beg leave to assure hi& 
Royal Highness the Commander in Chief, that, 
upon reflecting on the probability of the services 
of every officer being immediately required to op¬ 
pose an invading enemy, I do not wish that the 


i 







N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


si 

honor and interest of so insignificant an individual 
as myself should cause the absence of so many 
officers from their posts, as would be requisite to 
compose a court martial, and, in evidence, to sup¬ 
port my charges: wherefore I most cheerfully 
assent to yield implicitly, without appeal ever af¬ 
terwards, to any measures his Royal Highness may 
think proper to dictate, in the event of his Royal 
Highness not being convinced, upon the first 
view of my proposed statement, that I have suf¬ 
fered most unbearable and unwarrantable treat¬ 
ment from colonel Stewart ; likewise, that I am 
actuated purely by a zeal, untainted with any 
other impulse, for the good of his Majesty’s ser¬ 
vice, in the measures I have adopted to obtain re¬ 
dress of my grievances. 

From the most anxious wish which his Royal 
Highness has ever manifested to render the most 

f ? -r 4 

impartial justice to every rank, (which is so pro¬ 
verbial throughout the army,) 1 should feel most 
perfectly confident that if his Royal Highness 
would most graciously condesend to take my case 
into his consideration with that view, my honor 






/ 


32 THE VINDICATION of 

and interest could not be vested in a more impar¬ 
tial or more equitable tribunal. 

To prevent any apprehension of my appeal 
savoring of party spirit, I trust it will not be re¬ 
garded as an impertinent digression in my praying 
that you would be pleased to assure his Royal 
Highness the Commander in Chief that I am not 
actuated or advised by any officer of the 43d 
regiment, and that there is no individual of the 
corps fully in my confidence upon this painful 
subject. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your most obedient. 

And most humble servant* 

NATH. JEKYLL, 

Capt. 43d light infantry. 

(N.B. This letter was not honored with a 
reply.) 


/ 







N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


33 


From iY. Jekj/ll } Esq. to the Hon. Major Gen. Forbes . 

SIR, Ashford, March 10,1804. 

I beg leave to pray that you would be pleased 
to solicit for me leave of absence from his Royal 
Highness the Commander in Chief, for ten days. 
I am extremely anxious to obtain the opinion of 
the judge advocate general upon the first charge 
which I have preferred against colonel Stewart 
previous to the special warrant being presented 
for the signature of his Majesty, as, from the 
opinion of my counsel, I am apprehensive that 
the court martial might confine me so closely to 
the letter of the charge as to prevent my bring¬ 
ing forward one of the most material circumstan¬ 
ces which I have to substantiate that charge ; 
namely, that of colonel Stewart’s having actually 
enjoined me to disobey the commands of his Royal 
Highness the Commander in Chief, by not enlist¬ 
ing more than a very small limited number of men 
from the loyal Irish fencibles, and afterwards 
making the most solemn declaration, upon his 
word and honor, that no consideration could have 








34* 


THE VINDICATION OF 


induced him to have acted so contrary to the 
spirit of his Royal Highness’s orders as to have 
intimated a syllable by which I could, even for a 
moment, have conceived that he would have suf¬ 
fered my leaving my recruiting party at Jersey, 
after lieutenant general Sir Hugh Dalrymple had 
said that he would report my return most seriously 
to his Royal Highness the Commander in Chief. 

I further beg leave to assure you, Sir, that I 
consider it of very great moment to me that I 
should be enabled to procure the assistance of 
some of my military friends, and of a counsel 
conversant in courts martial, to arrange the seve¬ 
ral matters which it will be requisite for me to 
urge on the part of the prosecution; and that I 
am particularly desirous of such aid, to prevent 
my intruding unnecessarily on the time of a court 
martial any circumstances which may not appear 
absolutely necessary to prove my charges ; and 
that I might not cause the absence of any officer 
from his post, at this most critical moment, whose 
evidence I can dispense with. 

I have the honor to be, &c. 

N. JEKYLL, 
Captain 43d light infantry,. 






N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


SB 

=*• 


From Colonel Campbell, the Assistant Adjutant General 
to the Hon. Major General Forbes . 

Head Quarters, Canterbury, 
STR, March 14, 1S04. 

Ha ving submitted your letter of yesterday’s 
date, with inclosure from captain Jekyll, of the 
43d regiment to the general, I am directed to ac¬ 
quaint you that captain Jekyll’s application for 
leave cannot be complied with. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your obedient and faithful servant, 
(Signed) J. CAMPBELL, 

Assistant Adjutant General. 

P.S.—Captain Jekyll’s letter is returned. 


My letter to colonel Clinton (the Commander 
in Chief’s then secretary) not having been ho¬ 
nored by an answer, of course I concluded that 
my request to withdraw the specific charges which 
I had subscribed to against colonel Stewart would 
not be aQceded to; and my prayer to major gene- 


x> 2 







36 


THE. VINDICATION OF 


ral Forbes, for leave of absence to request the 
opinion of the judge advocate general, 8cc. relat¬ 
ing to those changes, previous to their being pre¬ 
sented in a special warrant for the royal signature, 
being peremptorily refused by general Sir David 
Dundas, I addressed a letter to major general 
Calvert, the adjutant general, dated March l(), 
1804, from which the following paragraphs are 
extracted: 

“ I humbly presume most earnestly to request 

i 

“ you would pray that his Royal Highness the 
“ Commander in Chief would graciously be 
“ pleased to grant me ten days leave of absence 

i * 

u for the purpose of soliciting the opinion of the 
<s judge advocate general upon the subject of the 
<c charges which I have preferred against colonel 
“ Stewart, my commanding officer.” 

w From an opinion of an eminent lawyer, I am 
cc apprehensive that without some addition to my 
“ first charge, the court martial might confine 
“ my evidence so closely to the letter of it, as to 
" prevent my bringing forward one of the most 
te material circumstances upon which I presumed 








N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


Si 


cc to form the charge of scandalous and infamous 
* c conduct.” 

“ When I was urged by general Sir David Dun- 
“ das, on the 26th of February ultimo, to deliver 
“ in forthwith my charges specifically against 
(C colonel Stewart, I entreated most earnestly a 
“ week’s leave of absence previously, and stated 
“ that my spirits were so much depressed, and 
“ my mind was so much agitated, from the de- 
< e grading treatment I daily experienced in the 
« eyes of my regiment, bringing incessantly and 
“ most forcibly to mind the many instances of 
“ excessive mortification which I had borne 
« through colonel Stewart’s most highly unbe- 
« coming conduct towards me, that I was anxious 
“ to obtain the advice of some military friends, 
“ and the aid of counsel conversant in courts 
“ martial, to enable me to make the charges pro- 
“ perly, and to arrange the several matters neces- 
“ sary to substantiate them.” 

“ I have made a similar request to major gene- 
« ral Forbes, and received a letter yesterday from 
“ him, containing an answer from colonel Camp- 
“ bell (the assistant adjutant general of this dis- 







0 


58 THE VINDICATION 0? 

“ trict), mentioning that general Sir David Dun- 
“ das declined forwarding my petition for leave to 
“ his Royal Highness. There is no intentional 
^ deficiency of the utmost deference towards the 
** pleasure of general Sir David Dundas in my 
presuming to make this request to you.” 

N. JEKYLL. 


From Colonel JVynyard Devufy Adjutant General , 

to N. Jekylj Esq. 

t 

■r 

SIR, Horse Guards, March 3 9, 1804. 

I have to acknowledge the receipt of your 
letter of the 16th instant, and to inform you the 
same has been referred to the general officer com- 
manding the district. 

I have the honour to be, Sir, 

Your most obedient servant, 

W. WYNYARD, 
Deputy Adjutant General, 





N. JEKYLL, ESQ, 


39 

» ~ RT --* * 

'om the Hon . Major Gen. Forbes to N. Jekyll , Esq. 

SIR, Ashford, March 21, 1804. 

I have just received notice from colonel 
Campbell, by order of general Sir David Dundas, 
that his Royal Highness the Commander in Chief 
has been pleased to grant to you one week’s leave 
of absence, which the general desires may com¬ 
mence from this day, and that you return with¬ 
out fail to the quarters of your regiment on the 
28th instant. 

I have the honour to be. Sir, 

Your obedient humble servant, 

J. FORRES, 
Major General. 


From Colonel Wynyard , Deputy Adjutant General , to 

N. Jekyll , Esq. 

SIR, Horse Guards, March 26, 1804. 

I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter 
of this day’s date, inclosing a paper containing 

d 4 




0 

40 THE VINDICATION OF 

amended charges against colonel Stewart of the 
43 d regiment; and I am directed to inform you, 
that the charges transmitted through general Sfr 
David Dundas have been inserted* in a special 
warrant for his Majesty’s signature, which of 
course will go to trial by a general court mar¬ 
tial. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your humble servant, 

W. WYNYARD, Dep. Adj. Gen, 

* Extract of a Letter from a Friend, dated April ]Oth 

1804 :—“ I applied to the deputy judge advocate genera!, 

" who informed me that the warrant was not yet in a state 

" for the royal signature, nor could he say at what time it 
€6 


would." 




N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


41 


On the 26th of May I received the following 
copy of the general orders. 


(Copy.) 

G. O. Canterbury, May 25th, 1S04. 

In consequence of his Majesty’s warrant hav¬ 
ing been received, constituting major general 
Moore president of a general court martial for 
the trial of colonel Stewart of the 43d regiment, 
on charges therein specified., the said court martial 
will assemble at Hythe barracks, on Tuesday the 
5th of June, at 11 o’clock A. M. 

Detail for the general court martial, of which 
jnaj or general Moore is president 

Field Gffis. Capts. 

Major general Staveley’s brigade - 2 1 

Major general Moore’s ditto - 5 3 

Major general Cartwright’s do. - 2 1 


9 5 

Captain Munro, royal artillery, deputy judge 
advocate. 

The members’ names, dates of commissions, 
and lists of evidences, to be prepared for the de- 
puty judge advocate. 

(Signed) J. CAMPBELL, Adj. Gen. 




u 


42 THE VINDICATION OF 

From Captain Munro to N. Jekylly Esq. 

SIR, Canterbury, May 30, 1804. - 

I beg to inform you, that I have summoned 
lieutenant Ross as a witness in support of the 
charges you have preferred against lieutenant co¬ 
lonel Stewart. Liutenant Ross will be at Hythe 
on Tuesday the 5th of June, the day appointed 
for the assembling of the general court martial. 
If there are any other witnesses to summon, and 
you have not already done so*, it will be requi¬ 
site for you to transmit me their names by return 
of post. I shall be at Hythe on Monday the 4th 
of June, early in the morning. 

I have the honor to be. Sir, 

Your humble servant, 
ALEX. MUNRO, Capt. Royal Art. 

Dep. Judge Advocate. 

* Persons unacquainted with military affairs might sup¬ 
pose, from this paragraph, that I had power to order the 
attendance of such witnesses as I wished to call on in sup¬ 
port of the prosecution :—but the fact is, I had none what¬ 
ever, nor could any individual have left his post at a requi¬ 
sition from myself. The attendance of evidences is always 
obtained by a special order through the adjutant general 
or through the judge advocate general. y. J. 


\ 




N. JEKYLLj ESQ,. 


43 


MEMORANDUM. 

Upon receiving this letter* I was apprehensive 
that the witnesses whose names I had been so 
peremptorily commanded to give in with my spe¬ 
cific charges* in the beginning of the preceding 
month of March* had not been summoned ; I 
therefore obtained leave to go and inquire from 
the deputy judge advocate* captain Munro* whe¬ 
ther he had received any intimation of their being 
directed to attend the court martial. I found 
from captain Munro* that (notwithstanding I had 
been obliged to give in the names of my witnesses 
at the time of subscribing to my charges* which 
I believe is rather unusual* and had been told by 
the honourable major general Forbes* that whe¬ 
ther a court martial would be appointed to investi¬ 
gate my complaints* would in all probability de¬ 
pend on the convenience of assembling the evi¬ 
dences whom I should call upon) only one of 
them* lieutenant Ross, had been ordered to at¬ 
tend the trial of colonel Stewart; who merely 
happened to have been detained in England at my 
special application to the adjutant general* uporj 





II 


44 t THE VINDICATION OF 

receiving intelligence of his being ordered upon a 
foreign station. By that surprising omission, I 
lost the testimony of two very material evidences, 
as will appear by my statement to lieutenant co¬ 
lonel Gordon of 6th of November last, and by 
my letter to the Commander in Chief, of the 12th 
following; likewise by the proceedings of the 
court martial in the evidence of Mr. Havelock. 

N. J. 





N. JKKYLL, ESQ. 


45 


At a general court martial holden by virtue of a 
warrant from his Majesty, at Sandgate, on the 
25th day of June 1804, were present. 


Major general JOHN MOORE, President, 

, / 

MEMBERS. 

Lieut. Col. John Dorien, royal regiment of horse guards; 
Lieut. Col. Henry Espinasse, 4th (or King’s own) foot; 
Lieut. Co 1. Thomas Brown, 59th regiment; 

Lieut. Col. John Stewart, 52d regiment; 

Major Henry Brown, 14th light dragoons ; 

Major Richard Pigot, 14th light dragoons 
Major Alexander M'Leod, 59th regiment; 

Major Warden Sergison, royal regiment of horse guards; 
Major Samuel Dales, 4th (or King’s own) foot; 

Captain Thomas Hankin, 2d. or royal N. B. dragoons; 

u 

Captain Thomas Douce, 4th (or King’s own) foot; 

Captain Thomas Smith, 14th light dragoons; 

Captain Edmund Faunce, 4th (or King’s own) foot; 
Captain John Ross, 95th regiment (rifle corps); 

DEPUTY JUDGE ADVOCATE 

Captain Alexander Munro, royal artillery. 







46 


THE VINDICATION OF 


The president and members of the court being 
duly sworn, and the deputy judge advocate being 
also sworn, the court proceeded on the trial of 
COLONEL RICHARD STEWART, 
of the 43d (or Monijnouthshire) regiment of foot, 
against whom the following charges were ex¬ 
hibited : viz. 

FIRST CHARGE. 

a Scandalous and infamous conduct, unbecom- 
“ ing the character of an officer and a gen- 
“ tleman, in wittingly making a false report 
“ to lieutenant general Sir Hugh Dalrymple, 
“ on or about the 1st of March 1802, in 
“ the island of Guernsey, purporting that 
“ he (colonel Stewart) had not granted cap- 
“ tain Jekyll any permission to be absent 
“ from his recruiting party then stationed 
“ in the island of Jersey, notwithstanding he 
4C had given captain Jekyll leave on the 22d 
a of the antecedent month, to solicit leave 
“ of absence, from his detachment, of lieute- 
“ nant general Gordon as soon as he had 
“ passed three or four days with it in Jersey > 









N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


47 


“ thereby having caused captain Jekyll to 
“ have been put under an arrest, and to have 
“ suffered, undeservedly, the most severe 
“ and painful reprimand and humiliating 
“ animadversions.” 


SECOND CHARGE. 

“ Repeated most disrespectful and degrading 
“ treatment in the presence of the company, 
“ and unwarrantable excessive abuse to cap- 
<c tain Jekyll, in the month of September 
“ 1802, in the island of Guernsey, and not 
“ having afforded captain Jekyll that support 
“ in his duty which is absolutely necessary 
“ for the preservation of good order and 
“ military discipline.” 

To the foregoing charges Colonel RICHARD 
STEWART pleadeth NOT GUILTY. 

Captain NATHANIEL JEKYLL, of the 43d 
regiment, appeared before the Court as prosecutor, 
and, after being duly sworn, produced the following 
orders from the regimental orderly book: 





0 


48 THE VINDICATION OF 


R. A. O* Amhurst Barracks, Feb. 22, 1802. 

A detachment, consisting of one captain, two 
serjeants, one drummer, and one private, will em¬ 
bark for Jersey on board the packet now in the 

' t 

harbour. Captain Jekyll, who is for the above 
duty, will report himself upon his arrival there to 
lieutenant general Gordon, and follow his further 
directions. 

R. M. O. t Amhurst Barracks, Feb. 23, 1802. 

A subaltern is added to the party under captain 
Jekyll, and will embark with them accordingly: 
for this duty lieutenant Dumoulin. 

R. A. O. Amhurst Barracks, Feb. 23, 1802. 

a 

Lieutenant Delisle having obtained permission 
to take lieutenant Dumoulin’s detachment for him 
ensign Champ will be for piquet this evening. 

Major JOHN CAMERON, of the 43d regi¬ 
ment, came before the Court as a witness for the 
prosecution, and after being duly sworn, was asked 
the following questions by desire of the prose¬ 
cutor: 








I 



N. JERYLL, Esq.. 4<g 

Q. Were you present with the 43d regiment 
in Guernsey, in the month of February 1802? 

A. I was. 

Q. Was you present on the 22d of that month, 
in the mess room of the regiment, when colonel 
Stewart ordered me with a party to recruit at 
• 

A. I do not recollect the date, but I was pre¬ 
sent in the mess room during some conversation 
that passed between you and colonel Stewart sub¬ 
sequent to the order being given out for your 
going to Jersey. 

The witness, on being desired to relate such 
part of the conversation as he heard in the mess 
room, deposed, that he heard captain Jekyll was 
shortly to return from Jersey on colonel Stewart's 
getting another officer to relieve him. 

Q. Did you hear colonel Stewart say that I was 

to be relieved before I returned, or was that only 

/ # ’ 

your own impression ? 

A. I did not hear those very words; but the 
purport, as I before said, was, that you were to 

* E 








50 


THE VINDICATION OF 


return when colonel Stewart got another officer 
to relieve you. 

Q. Did colonel Stewart say that he was aware of 
the object of the recruiting party in going to Jer¬ 
sey was to recruit from the loyal Irish fencibles ? 

A. No; but I knew that was the object. 

Q. Among the persons present in the mess 
room on the 22d, do you recollect Mr. Salmon’s 
being there ? 

A. Yes, he was. 

♦ 

The following questions were asked the witness 
by desire of colonel Richard Stewart: 

Q. Did you understand, from what passed in 
the mess room, that my sending another officer to 
relieve captain Jekyll was the only condition on 
which captain Jekyll was to return ? 

A. I don t recollect . 

A •• 

The following questions were put to the witness 
by the Court: 

Q. Did you conceive from what you heard 
that captain Jekyll had authority from colonel 
Stewart to return from Jersey as soon as he had 
settled his party, or that he (colonel Stewart) wag 





* V - '• * [) 

# - 

N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 51 

only intimating to captain Jekyll that he was to be 
recalled as soon as colonel Stewart got an officer 
to relieve him ? 

A. I conceived that captain Jekyll had not au¬ 
thority to return until he was relieved. 

Q. Do you remember colonel Stewart giving 
permission to captain Jekyll to ask general Gor¬ 
don for leave to return from Jersey, or saying any 
thing on that subject? 

A. No, I do not. 

i . , % 

THOMAS HAVELOCK, Esq. paymaster of 
the 43d regiment, a witness for the prosecution, 
being duly sworn, deposed, that on the morning 
of the 23d of February 1802, when in company 
with Mr. Salmon, late surgeon of the 43d regi¬ 
ment, in Amhurst Barracks, he saw captain Je¬ 
kyll address himself to colonel Stewart on the 
parade; they had some conversation respecting 
captain Jekyll’s going to Jersey; it seemed that 
captain Jekyll wished not to go on the duty he 
was ordered on; the witness then heard colonel 
Stewart say, that captain Jekyll must go to Jersey 

E 2 







52 


THE VINDICATION OF 


with his party; that after establishing his party 
he might return. 

The following questions were asked the witness 
by desire of colonel Richard Stewart: 

Q. Where did the conversation pass; and did 
you hear the whole or only a part of the con¬ 
versation ? 

A. The conversation passed in the square of 
Amhurst Barracks; I did not hear the whole of 
the conversation. 

- i 

Q. Did you hear me say any thing of an inten¬ 
tion to send another officer to relieve captain 
Jekyll ? 

A. I did not hear you say any thing to that 
effect. 

Q. Did you ever understand that I was to send 
another officer to relieve captain Jekyll ? 

A. Some days after the conversation had passed, 

% 

captain Hull informed me that he was ordered to 
Jersey to relieve captain Jekyll. 

Q. In the conversation alluded to was there any 

to 

mention made of general Gordon’s name ? 

A. None whatever. 








w 

N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 53 

The witness was asked the following questions 
by the Court: 

O. Might not much more have passed in the 
conversation alluded to be between colonel Stewart 
and captain Jekyll than what you heard ? 

A. There was certainly a great deal of conver¬ 
sation between the colonel and captain Jekyll 
that I did not hear; I will relate what I know.— 
I was walking backwards and forwards in the bar¬ 
rack yard with Mr. Salmon, waiting to speak to 
captain Jekyll, or to deliver him a bill which 
colonel Stewart had ordered me to draw; and 
observing that their conversation was drawing to a 
close, I went nearer, in order to speak to captain 
Jekyll; at that moment I heard the conversation 
I have stated. Colonel Stewart was at that mo¬ 
ment speaking louder than usual, which was the 
reason I heard the conversation. 

Q. Do you remember having made an obser¬ 
vation to Mr. Salmon, after captain Jekyll was 
put in arrest, that you particularly recollected the 
circumstances of his having colonel Stewart’s 
leave ? 

e 3 


0 





54 THE VINDICATION OF 

A. We both conceived captain Jekyll had colonel 
Stewart's leave , from the tenor of that part of 
the conversation zve heard . 

Major ROBERT BARCLAY, of the 52d regi¬ 
ment, appeared before the Court as a witness for 
the prosecution, and after being duly sw ; orn, 
deposed, that he was brigade major in the island of 
Guernsey at the period captain Jekyll was ordered 
to Jersey to enlist men from the loyal Irish' fencL 
bles. He (captain Jekyll) returned without Sir 
Hugh Dairymple’s permission, and was put under 
an arrest; to the best of his recollection, captain 
Jekyll was reprimanded and taken out of arrest, 
on its being admitted between colonel Stewart and 
captain Jekyll that some mistake might have ex¬ 
isted. Captain Jekyll was then sent back to 
Jersey. * 

The following questions were asked the witness 
by desire of captain Jekyll: 

Q. Were you present at Sir Hugh Dalrymple’s 
when I w as reprimanded for returning from Jersey 
without leave? 


i 






0 

N. JEKYI.L, ESQ. 


55 


A. I cannot positively say—-I think it very pro¬ 
bable I was. 

Q. Did I, previous to my going to Jersey, tell 
you that I had colonel Stewart’s authority, after I 
had fixed my party and staid there a few days, to 
apply to lieutenant general Gordon for leave to 
return, and that I was coming back in the course 
of a week ? 

A. I do not recollect having any particular con¬ 
versation with captain Jekyll; but I understood 
that on account of his wife’s ill health it was the 
intention to have him relieved as soon as pos¬ 
sible. 

Q. Have you any recollection of meeting me 
upon my landing at Guernsey, and mentioning to 
me that I was ordered under an arrest by Sir 
Hugh Dairymple, in consequence of colonel 
Stewart’s having reported to him that I was leav¬ 
ing my detachment without his (colonel Stewart’s) 
leave ? 

i 

A. I do recollect meeting you on the pier, and 
telling you that you was to be put in arrest, or 
putting you in arrest myself, I don't recollect 

E 4 









56 


THE VINDICATION OF 


which, for returning from Jersey without 
leave. 

Q. Do you remember my replying that I was 
perfectly easy on that subject, for that I had not 
only had colonel Stewart's leave , but likewise that 
of lieutenant general Gordon, who commanded in 
Jersey ? 

A. To the best of my recollection you did say 
that . 

At three o’clock the Court ad¬ 
journed till to-morrow. 


Tuesday , June 2 6 , 1804. 

The Court met pursuant to adjournment. 
President and members as before. 

Lieutenant colonel BURGH LEIGHTON, of 
the 4th dragoons, a witness for the prosecution, 
being duly sworn, was asked the following ques- 

t 

tions by desire of the prosecutor : 

Q. Were you present at Sir Hugh Dairy mple’s 





N. JEKYLL, ESQi 


\ 


57 

when I was reprimanded by him for returning 
from Jersey, under an impression that I had quit¬ 
ted it without leave in March 1802 ? 

A. Yes, I was. 

Q. Relate to the Court what passed at the 
time. 

A. I recollect that captain Jekyll left his party 
at Jersey without being relieved, and returned to 
Guernsey ; that the general was of course angry, 
reprimanded him, and, I believe, put him under 
an arrest; upon a further explanation, but I can-, 
not now recollect, both colonel Stewart and cap¬ 
tain Jekyll allowed that there might have been a 
mistake about the leave for captain Jekyll’s re¬ 
turning from Jersey to the island of Guernsey ; 
upon which Sir Hugh Dalrymple released captain 
Jekyll, to the best of my recollection, directly from 
his arrest. I understood that colonel Stewart did 
not give captain Jekyll leave to come from what 
colonel Stewart said. 

Q. Can you state the terms in which I was 
reprimanded? 

A. No, I cannot. 







THE VINDICATION OF 


55 

Questions from colonel Stewart to the witness. 

* » % 

Q. Did captain Jekyll assert that he had my 
leave to return ? 

A. Yes, he did. 

Q. Did not captain Jekyll, in the presence of 
Sir Hugh Dalrymple and myself, acknowledge 
that he might have mistaken my meaning*? 

A. They both admitted that captain Jekyll 
might have mistaken colonel Stewart’s meaning. 

Q. When you state that I acknowledged that 
captain Jekyll might have mistaken my meaning, 
do you mean to state that I consented to accept 
captain Jekyll’s apology cf that he (captain Jekyll) 
“ might have mistaken my instructions?” 

A. Y es, I did look upon it in that light. 

O. Was captain Jekyll sent back to Jersey by 
Sir Hugh Dalrymple ? 

A. Yes, I believe he was. 

Lieutenant GEORGE CHARLES ROSS, of 
the royal engineers, a witness for the prosecution, 

* See statement addressed to lieutenant colonel Gordon, 
dated Nov. 6 , 18CU, 











t 


N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 59 

being duly sworn, deposeth to the following ques¬ 
tions, which were asked him by desire of captain 
Jekyll : v 

Q. Do you recollect conveying any message 
from lieutenant general Sir Hugh Dalrymple to 
me in the months of April or May 1802 ? 

A. No, I do not* 

Q. Have you no recollection of coming to me 

i 

with an intimation from lieutenant general Sir 
Hugh Dalrymple, purporting that he had not 
reported my returning from Jersey to his Royal 
Highness the Commander in Chief, and of his 
being satisfied that I had had colonel Stewart’s 
leave to return ? 

A. I really do not recollect it. 

♦ 

Captain NATHANIEL JEKYLL stated as he 
found upon an examination of the witnesses to 
the second charge they did not support the testi¬ 
mony they first gave, that he should not detain 
Xhc Court to hear evidence he did not think suf¬ 
ficiently decisive. 

The prosecution here closed. 










60 


THE VINDICATION OF 


DEFENCE . 

Colonel RICHARD STEWART, of the 43d 
regiment, addressed the Court in his defence as 
follows : viz. 

In consequence of the proceedings which cap¬ 
tain Jekyll has thought fit to institute against me, 
the necessity of vindicating my own character 
has been imposed upon me, and I am now called 
upon to perform a duty which, under any circum¬ 
stances, is of a painful nature. 

In repelling those charges which the prosecutor 
has endeavoured to substantiate by the evidence 
which he has produced, I conceive that I shall act 
most respectfully towards the Court by confining 
my observations to those matters which have been 
made the subject of investigation in this place, 
and shall therefore abstain from comment on the 
general conduct of captain Jekyll since I have had 
the honour to command the 43d regiment. 

The Court cannot fail to have observed the 
difficulties under which I have laboured from being- 
called upon to prove the particulars of transactions 


i 









N. JEKYLL, esq. 61 

which happened at the distance of considerably 
more than two years; and for the delay in the 
commencement of this prosecution captain Jekyll 
has not been able, neither has he attempted, to 
assign any adequate reason. 

If my conduct had been of the most unbecom¬ 
ing and flagrant nature, ,it could not have been, 
described in expressions more harsh and vindictive 
than those which the prosecutor has adopted in 
framing the first charge; and the Court will not 
omit to contrast the force of the charge with the 
feebleness of the evidence adduced in support of 
it. 

The circumstances which led to the first charge 
originated in my having, in the month of February 
1802, directed captain Jekyll to proceed with a 
detachment to Jersey for the purpose of recruit¬ 
ing. Those directions were given by me in con¬ 
sequence of an order I had received from Sir 
Hugh Dalrymple, and captain Jekyll was selected 
x because he was the first officer for that duty . 
Captain Jekyll represented to me at the time how 
much he was distressed at being obliged to quit 







1 


\ 


62 THE VINDICATION OF 

— .. . . . . .... „ --- -- , ■ mdr 

Guernsey, as he must necessarily leave Mrs. Je- 
kyll, who was then confined by a dangerous ill¬ 
ness. Humanity dictated to me the propriety of 
doing what teas in my power to alleviate the suf¬ 
ferings of captain Jekyll , and I was induced to 
assure him that as soon as I could find another offi¬ 
cer to relieve him he should be recalled. Under 
these circumstances captain Jekyll sailed for Jer- 
sey; and having after a short interval returned 
without my authority, he teas involved in those 
humiliating scenes of which he has complained; 
and you have been involved in the necessity of 
investigating, whether captain Jekyll has evidence 
sufficient to satisfy your minds, that previous 
to his sailing for Jersey he had my permission, on 
settling his party, to return ; or whether, on the 
contrary, even the evidence of the prosecutor is 

not calculated to convince you that nothing more 

« 

than the hope of being relieved when an opportu¬ 
nity offered, was held out to him. 

I am charged with having given captain Jekyll 
leave to apply to general Gordon for permission to 
return to Guernsey, and with having made a false 




N. JEKYLL, E3^- 



6$ 

report on this subject to Sir Hugh Dalrymple. 
The first evidence which captain Jekyll has called 
to support this charge is major Cameron ; the re¬ 
sult of whose evidence is, that he overheard part 
of a conversation between me and captain Jekyll, 
the purport of which was, that captain Jekyll was 
to return when I could find another officer to 
relieve him. 

Major Cameron does not recollect one single 
expression which is calculated to support the 
charge ; and, on the contrary, all that he has de¬ 
posed corroborates my statement in the most direct 
and pointed terms*. 

The next evidence is Mr. Havelock the pay¬ 
master, who has deposed, that when walking 
backward and forwards in the barrack yard, wait¬ 
ing to speak to captain Jekyll, he overheard a 
small part of a long conversation between me and 
captain Jekyll, which was in substance, that cap¬ 
tain Jekyll wished not to go on the service he was 
ordered upon; and Mr. Havelock states, that he 

i 


* See comments on the defence- 




64 < 


THE VINDICATION OF 


then heard me say that captain Jekyll must go to 
Jersey with his party, and that, after establishing 
his party, he might return. 

It is material to observe in the first place, that 
this conversation passed in the open air, while the 
witness was at some distance from the parties; 
that he heard merely a few words of a long con¬ 
versation, without at all knowing what had pre¬ 
ceded them :—but when Mr. Havelock assigns as 
his reason why he heard one part and not the 
whole of the conversation, he states that I ap¬ 
peared warm, and was speaking louder than usual : 

—now it is very material to attend to this fact— 

♦ 

for if I appeared warm, what could have excited 
that warmth but something that had occurred in 
the conversation with captain Jekyll ? and as it 
appears that the subject of our conversation was 
captain Jekyll’s going to Jersey, and that he ap¬ 
peared unwilling to go on that duty, what can the 
Court infer, but that captain Jekyll was pressing 
in an improper manner to be excused from that 


service. 






W 


N. JEKYLL, ESQ. G5 

But if I had granted him the permission which 
Mr. Havelock has stated, was it not rendering the 
most acceptable service to captain Jekyll ? and all 
that was likely to have fallen from him under such 
circumstances must have been of a conciliatory 
nature, and not at all calculated to excite warmth 
on my part. 

It is hardly necessary to observe, that it ^is not 
surprising that Mr. Havelock, who only heard the 
few words which he has given in evidence, and 
who knows nothing else of the transaction, should 
have conceived that I had granted permission to 
captain Jekyll to return ; but the court will at the 
same time recollect how easy it was for Mr. Have¬ 
lock to misinterpret or misunderstand a few 
words, overheard in such a manner and under such 
circumstances. 

The next evidence was major Barclay, whose 
recollection of the circumstances was so imper¬ 
fect, that he could not speak positively to any ma¬ 
terial point. It appears however from his evi¬ 
dence, that captain Jekyll took an early opportu¬ 
nity of stating the grounds on which he intended 

# F 


i 








ee 


THE VINDICATION OF 


to defend his having returned to Guernsey; but 
captain Jekyll’s having at that time made the 
same declaration which he has repeated in the 
charge, is no evidence whatever of the fact, more 
especially as the assertion which he then made was 
the only ground on which he could justify the step 
he had taken. 

Lieutenant colonel Leighton has deposed to the 
facts of captain Jekyll’s having returned without 
being relieved ; of his being put under arrest; of 
his being reprimanded, ancl sent back to Jersey. 

t 

Lieutenant colonel Leighton has also stated, that 
* > 
captain Jekyll asserted that he had my leave to 

return ; but afterwards acknowledged, that he 

might have mistaken my meaning; and that I 

* \ 

having acquiesced in this apology, captain Jekyll 

v v ’ ' ' t \ 

was released 

• •> 

Lieutenant Ross knew nothing of the circum¬ 
stances of the transaction. 

Upon this evidence the Court are to determine, 
whether captain Jekyll has proved, that, previous 
to his going to Jersey, I gave him leave to return 

i 

on settling his party. The only evidence which 









N, JEKYLL, ESQ. 67 

gives the slightest support to the charge, is the 
testimony of Mr. Havelock; and in deliberating 
on that evidence, the Court will not only recollect 

i ^ 

the observation I have before made on this part, 
but will also contrast it with the evidence of major 
Cameron, who distinctly understood from what 
he heard*, that captain Jekyll was not to return 
until he was relieved by another officer ; with the 
evidence of lieutenant colonel Leighton, who 
states, that the very question now in dispute, was 
at the time canvassed before Sir Hugh Dalrymple, 
whose opinion is unequivocally proved by the 
steps he took:—by Sir Hugh’s orders', captain 
Jekyll was put under arrest, from which he was 
released on my accepting the acknowledgement 
which was made by capt. Jekyll; and Sir Hugh 
still further marked his opinion of the transaction, 
by reprimanding captain Jekyli, and by sending 
him hack to Jersey; although captain Hull, who 
had been appointed to relieve captain Jekyll, but 
had been prevented by an accident from sailing 


* See comments on the defence. 


/ 


F 2 







V 


63 THE VINDICATION OF 

previous to captain Jekyll’s return, was willing to 
have gone in his place. 

Captain Hull has not attended here to prove 
this transaction, because he is gone to Malta as 
aid-de-camp to general Drummond; but the fact 
that captain Hull was to have relieved captain Je- 
kyll, is now upon the procedings in the evidence 
of Mr. Havelock, who says, that a few days after 
the conversation to which he alluded, captain 

tf 

Hull informed him that he was ordered to relieve 
captain Jekyll. 

From an anxious desire to save the time of the 
Court, I have not called any other witnesses to 
prove this fact; and with those observations I 
submit this case, and what is still more valuable— 
my character, which in the course of twenty-nine 
years’ service has never before been impeached. 

At three o’clock the Court adjourned. 


\ 








f 


" / 

N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 69 

* 

. : 

‘ . • • I 

i 

/ m 

Wednesday, June 27 th, 1804. 

The Coart met pursuant to adjournment. 
President and members as before 

OPINION. 

The Court, having maturely weighed and con¬ 
sidered the evidence produced in support of the 
following charges; viz. cc Scandalous and infa- 
<c mous conduct, unbecoming the character of an 
“ officer and a gentlemen, in wittingly making a 
“ false report to lieutenant general Sir Hugh Dal- 
“ rymple, on or about the 1st day of March 1802, 
“ in the island of Guernsey; purporting that he 
<e (colonel Stewart) had not granted captain Je- 
“ kyll any permission to be absent from his re- 
“ cruiting party then stationed in the island of 
“ Jersey, notwithstanding he had given captain 
“ Jekyll leave, on the 22d of the antecedent 
“ month, to solicit leave of absence, from his de- 
“ tachment, of lieutenant general Gordon, as soon 
<( as he had passed three or four days with it in 

Jersey; thereby having caused captain Jekyll 

f 3 

t 



v 





70 


THE VINDICATION OF 


cc to have been put under an arrest, and to have 
ec suffered undeservedly the most severe and pain- 
u ful reprimand, and very humiliating animad- 
€C versions —2dly , cc Repeated most disrespectful 
ce and degrading treatment in the presence of the 
c<r company, and unwarrantable excessive abuse to 
ce captain Jekyll, in the month of September 

1802, in the island of Guernsey ; and not hav- 
e( ing afforded captain Jekyll that support in his 
iC duty, which is absolutely necessary for the pre- 
“ servation of good order and military discipline : 9> 
exhibited against colonel Richard Stewart, of 
the 43d (or Monmouthshire) regiment, toge¬ 
ther with what he hath offered in his defence,— 
are of opinion, that he the aforesaid colonel Ri¬ 
chard Stewart is not guilty of either of the 
charges, and the Court do most fully and most ho¬ 
norably acquit him. 

The Court cannot pass without observation the 
malicious and groundless accusations that have 
been produced, by captain Jekyll, against an officer 
whose character has, during a long period of ser¬ 
vice, been so irreproachable as colonel Stewart’s ; 





N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


71 


and the Court do unanimously declare, that the 
conduct of captain Jekyll, in endeavouring to 
falsely calumniate the character of his command¬ 
ing officer, is most highly injurious to the good of 
the service. 

JOHN MOORE, maj. gen. president. 

A true copy, 

J. A. Oldham. 

Judge Advocate General’s Office, 

28th August 1804. 

From N. Jekyll, Esq. to Colonel Clinton . 

/ 

SIR, ShornclifFe Camp, July 2, 1804. 

The very peculiar and most awful situation in 
which I stand at this moment, I most humbly 
trust, will be deemed an apology for my presum¬ 
ing to request you would do me the honor of 
praying, that his Royal Highness the Commander 
in Chief would most graciously be pleased to sus¬ 
pend his judgment upon my conduct relating to 

/ 

the general court martial held on colonel Stewart, 
until I may have been indulged with an opportu¬ 
nity of obtaining some decisive testimony, and 


p 4 







72 THE VINDICATION OF 

some very important circumstantial evidence; 
which I doubt not I might be enabled to procure 
from very respectable channels: and which, I am 
strongly induced to hope, would exonerate me in 
the mind of his Royal Highness, of having alleged 
such serious charges against colonel Stewart upon 
so very slight a foundatioh as that which my evi¬ 
dence afforded on the trial; or that would, at 

* 

* least, operate as a very powerful palliative of the 
extreme impropriety I might be found by his 
Royal Highness to have committed, in preferring 
those charges without having actually ascer¬ 
tained the evidence I could find in support of 
them. 

• • 

I have no view or intent of criminating colonel 
Stewart, by any thing I might now or hencefor¬ 
ward urge in my own defence: indeed, I con¬ 
ceived it a point of honor, for the good of the ser¬ 
vice, and towards myself, to evince that I retained 
no malice, to embrace the first opportunity of 
proclaiming colonel Stewart’s innocence*, as soon 

* By the spirit of our glorious constitution, when a man 
is tried, and not found guilty of the crime of which he was 
ccused, he is considered as entirely innocent. 


( 







N. JEKYLL, ESQ 


73 


as I experienced the deficiency of the evidence I 
had brought forward against him. 

I most humbly beg leave (to assuage for the 
present moment the indignation which I am sen¬ 
sible the court martial cannot but excite in the 
breast of the Commander in Chief) to inform you, 
that the extreme want of recollection on the part 
of those officers who composed Sir Hugh Dal- 
rymple’s staff, drew forth repeated expressions of 
great surprise from the president, and from almost 
every member of the court martial; likewise, 
that my not having made myself certain upon the 
evidence I expected major Cameron and Mr. 
Havelock would have given, arose from an 
anxious zeal for the credit and interest of the 
regiment; that I might affirm before the court, 
that I was not influenced, by any officer of the 
corps; and that no individual of them was aware 
of the shape in which I intended to put any 
question to him, with a view of obviating the 

4 . 

possibility of my appeal to a court martial bearing 
the slightest shade of party spirit, and of any other 
officer’s suffering prejudice through my fate. 





74 


THE VINDICATION OF 


I most humbly hope that his Royal Highness 
will be pleased to take into his most gracious con¬ 
sideration the circumstance of my having acted 
entirely without advisers, under an ineffable agi¬ 
tation of mind, created by a never-ceasing im¬ 
pression that I was labouring under an almost 
indelible obloquy from the degradations I ima¬ 
gined myself to have suffered; and not having 
reflected, that events which had caused so much 
pain to myself would have been so slightly im¬ 
printed on those who had witnessed my humi¬ 
liations. 

I have the honor to be. Sir, 

* 

Your most obedient and 

most humble servant, 

NATH. JEKYLL, 

Capt. 43d. regiment. 








I 


75 


N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 

4 

From Colonel Clinton to N. Jekyll , Esq. 

SIR, Horse Guards, 4th July 1804. 

I have to acknowledge the receipt of your 
letter, which I shall lay before the Commander in 
Chief:—at the same time I beg to observe to 
you, that upon the subject of it you should 
have addressed yourself to general Sir David 
Dundas. 

I am, Sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

H. H. CLINTON. 


(Copy.) 

G. O. Head Quarters, Canterbury, 8th July 1804. 
The letter which follows, from the judge advo¬ 
cate general to his Royal Highness the Comman¬ 
der in Chief, is to be inserted in the orderly books 

/ \ 

of each regiment throughout the southern district. 

J. CAMPBELL, A. A. Gen. 

t »* 1 

• * 

Major Gen. Moore , 

Skc. Me. Me. 


i 





76 


THE VINDICATION OF 


(Copy.) 

SIR, Judge Adv. Gen. Office, 7th July 180i. 

Having had the honor of laying before the 
King the copy of a general court martial held at 
Sandgate in Kent, on the 25th of June last, where 
colonel Richard Stewart of the 43d (or Mon¬ 
mouthshire) regiment of foot, was tried upon the 
following charges preferred against him by captain 
Nathaniel Jekyll of the same regiment, viz. 

1st, “ Scandalous and infamous conduct, un- 
cc becoming the character of an officer and a gen- 
“ tleman, in wittingly making a false report to 
<c lieutanant general Sir Hugh Dairymple, on or 
<c about the 1st of March 1802, in the island of 
“ Guernsey; purporting that he (colonel Stew r - 
“ art) had not granted captain Jekyll anypermis- 
“ son to be absent from his recruiting party in 
“ the island of Jersey, notwithstanding he had 
“ given captain Jekyll leave, on the 22d of the 
cc antecedent month, to solicit leave of absence, 
a from his detachment, of lieutenant general 
“ Gordon, as soon as he had passed three or 












/N. JEKYLL, ESC. 77 

<c four days with it in Jersey; thereby having 

' \ 

** caused captain Jekyll to be put under an arrest, 
“ and to have suffered undeservedly the most 
c<r severe and painful reprimand, and very humili • 
u ating animadversions 

“ 2dly, Repeated most disrespectful and de- 
cc grading treatment in the presence of the com- 
“ pany, and unwarrantable excessive abuse to 
u captain Jekyll, in the month of September 1802, 
in the island of Guernsey; and not having af- 
“ forded captain Jekyll that support in his duty, 
which is absolutely necessary for the preserva- 
iC tion of good order and military discipline —- 
I am commanded to acquaint your Royal High¬ 
ness, that his Majesty has entirely approved the 
opinion of the court martial, which has most fully 
and most honorably acquitted the said colonel 
Richard Stewart on both charges, and which has 
superadded the following remark with regard to 
the prosecutor; viz. cc The Court cannot pass 
“ without observation the malicious and ground- 

^ ‘ \ _ ‘ v • • ‘ ; ■ .' - 

“ less accusations that have been produced, by 
“ captain Jekyll, against an officer whose character 


% 








78 


THE VINDICATION OF 


“ has, during a long period of service, been so 
iC irreproachable as colonel Stewart’s ; and the 
“ Court do unanimously declare, that the con- 
“ duct of captain Jekyll, in endeavouring falsely 
“ to calumniate the character of his commanding 
“ officer, is highly injurious to the good of the ser- 
“ vice.” 

And I am further to acquaint your Royal High- 

r 

ness, that his Majesty has thought fit to direct, 
that it be intimated to the said captain Nathaniel 
Jekyll, that his Majesty has no farther occasion 
for his service as a captain in the 43d (or Mon- 

i , 

mouthshire) regiment. 

I have the honour to be, with dutiful respect* 
Your Royal Highness’s 

most obedient and 
most humble servant, 
(Signed) CHARLES MORGAN. 

r . * v 

True Copy, 

J. Campbell, A. Adj. Gen. 

To his Toy at Highness the 
Duke of York, Field Mar¬ 
shall , Commander in Chief of 
his Majesty's Forces . 






N. JEKYLLj ESQ. 


79 



To Field Marshal his Royal Highness the Duke 
of York, Commander in Chief of his Majesty’s 
Forces, &c. &c. &c. 


The MEMORIAL of Nath. Jekyll, Esq. (late 
Captain of his Majesty’s 43d (or Monmouth¬ 
shire) Regiment of Light Infantry, 

Sheweth, 

That the memorialist was in Barbadoes in the 
year 1794, under the protection of the late gover¬ 
nor Parry ; that an expedition being formed against 
Martinique, St Lucia, and Guadaloupe, he volun¬ 
teered his services, and was attached to the light 
infantry of the Qth regiment, in a battalion of light 
infantry, under the immediate command of the 
present Sir Eyre Coote ; that his conduct at the 
reduction of those islands, induced lord Grey of 
Howick to appoint him to an ensigncy, and very 
shortly afterwards to a lieutenancy; and that, 
when he had only served one year, his Royal 
Highness the Commander in Chief was graciously 
pleased, from the favorable representation made to 


\ 








80 


THE VINDICATION OF 


him of the memorialist, to sanction his purchasing 
a company in the 43d regiment; which he trusts 
he has retained until this period without the 
slightest shadow of imputation to his character 
either as an officer or as a gentleman : 

That it is very opposite to the wish or intent 
of the memorialist to attach any undue censure to 
the conduct of colonel Stewart;—indeed he ac¬ 
knowledges, that he considers he might have been 

induced to make use of warmer expressions than 

% 

perhaps either propriety, or colonel Stewart’s si¬ 
tuation, ought to have permitted ;—yet he most 
humbly prays, that his Royal Highness the Com¬ 
mander in Chief, with his usual benevolence, will 

/ 

make some allowance for the feelings of an officer, 

most deeply wounded by public, and what he con- 

♦ 

ceived undeserved reproaches, occasioned by the 
representations of colonel Stewart; most parti¬ 
cularly by the truly degrading appellation of 
“ that skulking captain !” an epithet applied to 
him by lieutenant general Sir Hugh Dalrymple 
upon the garrison parade, in face of three regi¬ 
ments under arms, in consequence of an erroneous 





jEKYLL, ESQ. 


81 


idea of his having left his recruiting party without 
leave; which the memorialist believes must ap¬ 
pear, by the testimony of Mr. Havelock upon the 
court martial, not to have been the case: the 
Commander in Chief will most forcibly feel what 
must have been the sensations of an officer, occa¬ 
sioned by such humiliating expressions, especially 
when conscious of their being undeserved: 

That the memorialist most humbly prays, that 
his Royal Highness will take into his most gra¬ 
cious consideration, that although of an old and 
respectable family, and happily connected by mar¬ 
riage, his almost entire dependence, for the sup¬ 
port of himself and that of his wife, was in his 
profession ; and likewise the circumstances of his 
having acted entirely without advisers, either mi¬ 
litary or legal; and that, knowing the conse¬ 
quences which had most justly ensued from cabals 
against commanding officers, he so far carried the 
fear of committing any other gentleman of the re¬ 
giment, that he studiously shunned having any 
communication with any one upon the subject, 
and avoided examining any officer as to the nature 

G 



v 








82 


THE VINDICATION OF 


and extent of his evidence; from whence it arose, 
that many circumstances, which might have been 
brought to recollection by a conversation upon the 
subject, were totally lost in evidence ; and which, 
although they might have been insufficient to 
have established the charges to the satisfaction of 
the court martial, might very satisfactorily have 
accounted for those feelings which induced him to 
hazard their production : 

• And also that, in addition to the conduct 
which recommended the memorialist to the pur¬ 
chase of his late company, he has been honored 
with several communications of his Royal High¬ 
ness’s approbation of his military zeal, in terms 
highly flattering to him ; particularly in a recent 
instance, for a very humble proof of assiduous ex¬ 
ertion to quality himself for arduous duties, which 
he had most anxiously hoped would have enabled 
him to have shewn himself not unworthy of the 
confidence reposed in him by the most gracious 
Sovereign, and of the honor conferred on him by 
his Royal Highness the Commander in Chief: 

And further, the memorialist most humbly 












N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


83 


prays that his Royal Highness the Commander in 
Chief will not, for one instance of imprudence, 
the effect of a too ardent mind, a nervous and 
continued dejection of spirits arising from sup¬ 
posed injuries, at a very early period of life aban¬ 
don all his prospects in a profession in which his 

whole views of ambition were centred, to utter 

* 

and disgraceful ruin (which he hopes his Royal 

Highness will consider as not altogether merited, 

» 

when the foregoing provocations, not brought for ¬ 
ward upon the trial, are taken into the scale); 
but that the Commander in Chief would still so 
far extend his fostering protection to the memo¬ 
rialist, as to pray that his Majesty would most gra¬ 
ciously be pleased to reinstate him in some other 
regiment of the line : 

And the memorialist shall ever pray, 8cc. 

NATHANIEL JEKYLL, 

k i t 

Welbeck-street, August 6th, 1804. 


Q 2 







84 


THE VINDICATION OF 


From Lieutenant Colonel Gordon to N. Jekyll, Esq. 

mm 

SIR, Horse Guards, 7th August 1 SO 4. 

I have not failed to lay before the Commander 

9 

in Chief your letter and memorial of yesterday’s 
date ; and am directed to acquaint you, that, 
from the circumstances under which you have 
been removed from the service, his Royal High¬ 
ness cannot recommend to his Majesty that you 
should be reinstated. 

I have the honor to be. Sir, 

Your most obedient servant, 

' • J. W. GORDON. 

\ 

From N. Jekyll, Esq. to Lieutenant Colonel Gordon. 

SIR, Welbeck-street, Aug. 9, 1804. 

I have the honor to acknowledge your letter 
of the 7 th instant, which I have received this 
morning, in answer to my memorial. 

I now, Sir, humbly beg leave to entreat you 
would do me the honor to pray that his Royal 


\ 


1 





N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


85 


Highness the Commander in Chief would most 
graciously be pleased to suffer me to lay before 
him some decisive and very essential circumstan¬ 
tial testimony, which I most humbly hope and 
believe might fully exonerate my character from 
the odious imputation of having been actuated by 
malice or falsehood in preferring my charges 
against colonel Stewart of the 43d regiment; 
and which I think cannot fail to evince., that 
under the impressions it must be obvious I could 
not but have had of the circumstances upon which 
iny charges were grounded, my conduct will ap¬ 
pear to have been influenced, in every part, by 
the strictest principles of honor ; and that, should 
such an indulgence be granted, I have no doubt 
but that it would readily be perceived that my 
not having stood in that point of view before the 
general court martial arose merely from an ex¬ 
treme anxious wish to avoid, as far as I thought 
possible, inconvenience to his Majesty’s service; 
likewise from a too rigid adherence to a (perhaps 
false) point of honor, for the credit and indivi¬ 
dual interest of the 43d regiment. 

G 3 


I 




S6 


THE VINDICATION OF 


To palliate the unfavourable opinion which it 
seems to me, from the intimation you were pleased 
to honor me with, the Commander in Chief en¬ 
tertains, of my having most perversely and very 
imprudently resisted the condescending and very 
kind advice offered me by general Sir David 
Dundas, the honorable major general Forbes, 
and the assistant adjutant general (colonel Camp¬ 
bell), resulting from a mature deliberation upon 
my stated grievances, previous to the being 
called upon for my specific charges ; I beg leave 
to acknowledge that I considered the terms pro¬ 
posed to me were such, that no man, who might 

f - i • , . _ .' . 

have been supposed to possess the least sentiment 
of honor, could have been expected to have ac- 
ceeded to ; and that I have ever had too high a 
respect for his Majesty’s service, likewise for tho 
Commander in Chief, to have imagined his Royal 
Highness would have permitted my bearing his 
Majesty’s commission, or that the officers of any 
British regiment could have regarded so little the 
most noble of virtues, honor, as to have al¬ 
lowed me to have sat another moment in their 





N. JEKYLL, ESQ 


*87 

1 ■ ■ ■ - II I ■ 1^— M— * — ■■ 11 ■* " « » . i » S ~ ■ - ' i— - — 

society, if, without any inquiry having been made 
relative to my complaints, I had made such an 

I 1 T A ; 

apology in the presence of the honorable major 
general Forbes, and all the officers of the 43cl 
regiment, as would have contained a complete 
retraction of the charges (rather accusations) 
which I made against my commanding officer, 
and a conviction of their impropriety and injust¬ 
ice, as well as a wish to obtain pardon for using 
them. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

■ 7 

Your most obedient and 

most humble servant, 

NATH. JEKYLH 

From Lieutenant Colonel Gordon to N. Jcki/ll, Esq. 

SIR, Horse Guards, 11th Aug, 1804. 

I have not failed to lay before the Commander 
in Chief your letter of thegth instant, and am di¬ 
rected to acquaint you, that his Royal Highness 
has no objection to your transmitting, for his in- 
formation, whatever you may think of advantage 

G 4 


I 






THE VINDICATION OF 


8$ 

- ■ - j ? 

to you: but your conduct having been fully in¬ 
vestigated by a general court martial, his Royal 
Highness cannot recommend that any alteration 
should be made in the decision already given, 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your most obedient servant, 

J. W. GORDON, 

From N. JekyUj Esq. to Lieutenant Colonel Gordon . 

SIR, Welbeck-streef, Sept. 24, 1804. 

I have the honor to request that you would 
most earnestly pray that his Royal Highness the 
Commander in Chief would be pleased to suffer a 
general court martial to be held upon my con¬ 
duct, for having alleged charges against colonel 
Stewart of his Majesty's 43d regiment, and not 
having substantiated them before the general court 
martial lately held for the investigation of the 
same ; that I might be favoured with an oppor¬ 
tunity of exonerating myself from the most odious 
stigma which I am labouring under at present, 
from the declaration of that court martial; and of 






N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


89 


proving, that upon that occasion I was far indeed 
from having been actuated by malice or false¬ 
hood—imputations which, from the documents 
actually in my possession, combined with such 
testimony as I am well assured I might be enabled 
to procure in my own defence, I cannot but be¬ 
lieve must be found to have been undeservedly 
heaped upon me. 

To flatter myself with confidence that my most 
humble and fervent prayer will experience a fa¬ 
vorable consideration, I am sure I have but to 
affirm (which I most solemnly do) that I cannot 
attribute the cause of my not having, at least ho¬ 
norably, justified my conduct upon the trial of 
colonel Stewart, to the several incidences of my 
not having been acquainted with all the established 
maxims of general courts martial; an excessive 
anxiety to avoid, at a critical juncture, as far as I 
thought possible, inconvenience to his Majesty’s 
service; a too rigid adherence to a (perhaps false) 
point of honor, arising from great solicitude for 
the credit and individual interest of the 43d re¬ 
giment ; added to the not having reflected, under 




DO 


THE VINDICATION OF 


an extreme agitation of mind, that events which 
had created ineffable mortification to myself 
should have been so slightly imprinted on the 
minds of officers, (from whose retention of me¬ 
mory it seemed to have been obvious, even to the 
Court, I had improvidently relied for the proof of 
circumstances the most material upon which my 
charges were founded.) that, at a period cer¬ 
tainly not very distant, they should have almost 
entirely escaped recollection. 

I beg leave to intimate to you. Sir, that in the 
event of my most sanguine hopes and expectations 
not appearing to have been fallaciously formed, 1 
shall afterwards trespass no further on the great 
benevolence of the Commander in Chief than to 
supplicate that his Royal Highness would conde¬ 
scend to pray that the most excellent Sovereign, 
in consideration of above ten years’ service, 
(which I trust might be found not to have been 
unzealously devoted to the interest of his Ma- 

i . » 

jesty’s service, and to the community at large,) 
would be most graciously pleased to allow me to 
retire from the army, receiving the regulated 







N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


91 


sum which I actually paid for my late company in 
the 43d regiment. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your most obedient, 

t 

and most humble servant, 

NATHANIEL JEKYLL. 


From Lieutenant Colonel Gordon to N. Jekyll , Esq, 
SIR, Horse Guards, Sept. 25, 1804. 

I did not fail to lay before the Commander in 
Chief your letter of yesterday’s date ; and am di¬ 
rected to acquaint you, that no alteration can 
be made in the decision hitherto given on your 
case. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your most obedient humble servant, 

J. W. GORDON. 

V. * 

(Copy.) 

SIR j Welbeck'Street, Sept. 28, 1804. 

I have the honor to acknowledge your letter 
of the 25th instant, which I received yesterday, 





92 


THE VINDICATION OF 


and to beg leave, with the most possible deference 
towards the pleasure of the Commander in Chief, 
therein communicated, to acquaint you, Sir, that 
should the good fortune yet await me of being 
permitted to evince, upon an abundance of re¬ 
spectable testimony, the impressions which I in¬ 
variably had of colonel Stewart’s treatment, and, 
in my own defence to adduce such further evi¬ 
dence as I might conceive sufficient to demon¬ 
strate how far those conceptions were justifiable, 
I am thoroughly confident my conduct in having 
preferred my complaints cannot but appear, upon 
a mature investigation to have been perfectly ho¬ 
norable. I therefore must again presume, with 

t 

the utmost humility, fervently to solicit that you 

would do me the honor of praying that his 

/ 

Royal Highness the Commannder in Chief would 
condescend to reconsider the several circumstances 
stated in my letter of the 24th instant, and to 
allow the point of my having failed in the attempt 
to prove the facts, upon which my charges were 
founded, merely from the impulse of sentiments 
which cannot but be regarded as honorable, aijd 






N. JEK.YLL, Esa 


93 


even laudable, to occupy a few moments of his 
Royal Highness’s attention ; in anxious hope that 
the Commander in Chief might be most graciously 
disposed to cause a general court martial to af¬ 
ford me an opportunity of removing from my 
character the utterly intolerable weight of an 
odious imputation, which appears, to those of 
my friends who are really acquainted with my 
case as well as to myself, to have been unduly 
ascribed to me by the general court martial lately 
held on colonel Stewart. 

I cannot refrain from assuring you, Sir, with 
the most profound humility, that when I assented 
to take upon myself the very arduous task of pro¬ 
secuting a commanding officer before a general 
court martial, without even the testimony of the 
most material of the witnesses, whose names I 
had given in with the specific charges, in obedi¬ 
ence to the orders of general Sir David Dundas, in 
the month of March last, it was with the most 
entire confidence (arising from many instances of 
the most impartial justice administered by the 
Commander in Chief, which had raised my hum- 






94 


THE VINDICATION OF 


ble respect toward his royal person and to 
the service to enthusiasm) that it would be trea¬ 
son, not only toward the Commander in Chief, 
but also to the state, to suppose that my honor¬ 
able motives would really suffer disadvantages 
which could be deemed to bear the slightest tint 
of any thing at all incompatible with the honor 
and dignity of that immaculate justice, hitherto, 
for many ages, the basis of every honest Briton’s 
greatest glory, and which has so long rendered 
every department of our most excellent govern¬ 
ment the object of envy and admiration to the 
rest of the world. Wherefore I cannot yet re¬ 
linquish the ardent hope that his Royal Highness 
the Commander in Chief will most graciously be 
pleased to honor my present truly wretched and 
unfortunate situation with a favourable consider¬ 
ation. 

I have the honour to be, Sir, 

Your most obedient and 
most humble servant, 

NATH. JEKYLL. 

To Lieutenant Colonel Gordon } 


4 






95 


N. JEKYLLj ESQ. 


From JV. Jckxjll , Esq. to Lieutenant Colonel Gordon. 

$ 

SIR, Welbeck-street, Oct. 4, 1804. 

I have the honor to pray that you would be 
pleased to favor me with a copy of a paper 
which I apprehend has ^been presented to the 
Commander in Chief, signed by many officers of 
the 43d regiment, contradicting a seeming inac¬ 
curacy contained in some part of the first state¬ 
ment of my regimental grievances. 

The cause of my presuming to make this re¬ 
quest to you, Sir, arises principally from my not 
having received (from the officer at whose in¬ 
stance it was done) either any kind of intimation of 
such a paper having been subscribed to, or trans¬ 
mitted to the Commander in Chief, although t 
expressed to several officers, who mentioned to 
me such a matter having been in agitation, a par¬ 
ticular wish to have been made fully acquainted 
with its tenor ; and also from a conception that I 
have reason to imagine that the highest indigna¬ 
tion of his Royal Highness has been excited 







96 


THE VINDICATION* OF 


against me by that paper, and some reports which 
I understand have been preferred to head-quar¬ 
ters, representing me to have been an unzealous 
and an extremely negligent officer, in addition to 
the unfortunate failure of my charges. 

Notwithstanding, I cannot lose the confident 

expectation that ere long I shall be enabled to lay 

* 

before the Commander in Chief such documents 
as I trust will not fail to remove every unfavor¬ 
able prejudice from my character, and create at 
least some small degree of interest on my behalf 
in the fostering breast of his Royal Highness. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your most obedient and 

most humble servant, 

. r'V 

NATH. JEKYLL. 





91 


tt. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


From Lieutenant Colonel Gordon to N. Jekyll , Esq. 

SIR, Horse Guards, Oct. 6, 1804. 

I have received and laid before the Com¬ 
mander in Chief your letters of the 28th Septem¬ 
ber and 4th instant, and am directed to acquaint 
you, in answer to the former, that his Royal 
Highness sees no good reason to alter the de¬ 
cision already communicated to you ; and in re¬ 
ply to the latter, that on the subject of it you 
must apply to the judge advocate general 
through whom alone any papers relative to ques¬ 
tions arising from the proceedings of courts mar * 
iial can be transmitted. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your most obedient humble servant, 

J. W. GORDON. 

f I applied to the deputy judge advocate general for the 
copy of that letter, but found it not in his office ; nor was 
it probable that it would have been there, as not being im¬ 
mediately connected with the proceedings of the court mar¬ 
tial. N. J. 


H 


f 






93 


THE VINDICATION OF 


From N. Jekyll , Esq. to Lieutenant Colortei Gordon. 

SIR, Welbeck-street, Nov, 6, 1801. 

I have the honor to pray that you would be 
pleased to lay before his Royal Highness the 
Commander in Chief the inclosed narrative of the 
principal circumstances upon which was founded 
the first of the charges exhibited by me against 
colonel Stewart, of his Majesty’s 43d regiment of 
foot; also a statement of some essential matters 
calculated to shew that my second charge was 
not without foundation ; to which I have pre¬ 
fixed some important comments, pointing out 
several of the great inconsistencies and inaccura¬ 
cies specified in the defence of colonel Stewart, 
which I trust,. with great humility, most confi- 

i 0 , 

dently, will dispose his Royal Highness the 
Commander in Chief to suffer a general court 
martial to afford me an opportunity of removing 
from my character the insupportable weight of an 
odious imputation which has been most unduly 
attached to me by the unanimous declaration of 
the general court martial lately held on colonel 








N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


99 


Stewart. I have also the honor to acquaint you. 
Sir, that I applied to the judge advocate general 
for the paper which I understand was transmitted 
to his Royal Highness the Commander in Chief, 
signed by the officers of the 43d regiment, con¬ 
tradicting some seeming inaccuracy contained in 
one of my letters complaining of colonel Stewart’s 
treatment to myself; and that Mr. Oldham in¬ 
formed me of its not being in that office, as not 
having been immediately connected with the pro¬ 
ceedings of the general court martial. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

. » 
Your most obedient and 

most humble servant, 

N. JEKYLL, 






100 


THE VINDICATION OF 



\ 

--- / 


A STATEMENT 

Of the principal circumstances upon which 
was founded the first of the charges exhi¬ 
bited by Nathaniel Jekyll, Esq. against 
colonel Stewart, of his Majesty’s 43d 
regiment of foot. Also of some essential 
matters,' calculated to evince that the 
second charge was not without founda¬ 
tion ; and likewise some material com¬ 
ments, pointing out several of the most 
glaring of many extreme inconsistencies, 
as well as evident inaccuracies, specified in 
the defence of colonel Stewart. 

. ^ t t 

* * ' ' , \ 

Sift, Welbeck-street, Nov 6, 1S04-. 

On the 22d of February 1802, an order was 
communicated to colonel Stewart, from his Royal 

✓ * s B] 

Highness the Commander in Chief, by lieutenant 
general Sir Hugh Dalrymple, to cause a recruit- 





N. JEKYLL, ESQ, 


101 


ing party from the 43d regiment, under the charge 
of a captain, to proceed instantaneously from 
Guernsey to Jersey, there to be under the di¬ 
rection of lieutenant general Gordon. That or¬ 
der was received by colonel Stewart when at the 
mess dinner of the 43d regiment; and upon its 
contents having been mentioned, major Hull 
(then captain) solicited that he might be permit¬ 
ted to take that tour of duty for me, my name 
standing the first among the captains for detach¬ 
ments. Colonel Stewart knowing, as he has 
stated in his defence, that Mrs. Jekyll was at that 
period confined by a dangerous illness, most 
readily assented to major Hull’s request, previous 
to my having been informed of the arrival of the 
Commander in Chief’s order. As the recruiting 
party was directed to go by the same packet, 
(which was expected to have sailed within a few 
hours afterwards,) major Hull lost no time in ac- 
quainting me of his Royal Highness’s commands, 
and also of the before-mentioned arrangement 
having been made between colonel Stewart and 
himself: of course I did not fail to return with 

H3 




102 


THE VINDICATION OF 


major Hull to the mess room, to offer my ao 

• i 

. 

knowledgments to colonel Stewart of the obliga¬ 
tion I felt at that moment, and also to do what I 
considered a necessary point of respect, in for¬ 
mally stating to colonel Stewart that it was the 
mutual desire of major Hull and of myself to ef¬ 
fect the exchange of duty, to which the colonel 
had before been pleased to give his assent.— 
Colonel Stewart, upon my entering the mess- 
room, told me of the Commander in Chief’s 
orders, and added, that the friendly offer of 
major Hull to go in my place had obtained his 
entire concurrence ; upon which I considered, as 
did major Hull and every other officer who was 
present, that it was most decidedly settled by 
colonel Stewart that I was to have remained in 
-Guernsey, for the reasons before stated. How¬ 
ever, major Hull afterwards represented to colonel 
Stewart that the late captain Satterthwaite had 
signified a particular inclination to go in command 
of the party to Jersey; at the same time confess- 

•' ■ 1 , i 

ing that his (major Hull’s) only motives in volun¬ 
teering that detachment arose from friendship to- 

ijr 






N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


103 


ward me : in reply to which, colonel Stewart, 
in the most possible distinct and positive terms, 
declared his entire consent to that arrangement 
But after some conversation between colonel 
Stewart and the late captain Satterthwaite, the 
colonel having permitted him to quit the mess- 

room without having betrayed to captain Satter- 

./ 

thwaite even the slightest emotions of displeasure, 
for the purpose of directing his portmanteau to be 
packed, under the expectation that he was to 
have embarked immediately for Jersey, colonel 
Stewart intimated to me that he was not alto¬ 
gether pleased at the manner in which captain 
Satterthwaite expressed himself, relating to his 
going to Jersey; and signified his wish that I 
should go with the recruiting party. The colonel 
likewise informed me, that although the object 

* Major Cameron has informed me, since the court mar¬ 
tial held on colonel Stewart, of the fact of major Hall's, and 
afterwards of the late captain Satterthwaite’s having received 
colonel Stewart’s permission to embark in my stead, for Jer¬ 
sey, previous to my having been directed to proceed with 
the recruiting party ; and I am well assured that several 
other officers can testify to the same effect. 







104 


THE VINDICATION OF 


of the party was not specified in the orders which 
he had received,, he was most fully aware of the 

i _ 

detachment being destined to enlist men from the 

✓ x . 

loval Irish fencibles; and that as he was not 
•* 

anxious to receive any more Irish, and was, in 
fact, determined not to take one whom he could 
in any manner avoid, he (colonel Stewart) merely 
wished me to go and settle my party at Jersey. 
Colonel Stewart further assured me, that as soon 
as I had been three or four days in Jersey he 
would send me a subaltern ; and added, that upon 
his arrival I might request a short leave of ab¬ 
sence from lieutenant general Gordon, stating 
that I had the sanction of my commanding of¬ 
ficer to make the petition, on account of Mrs. 
Jekyll’s being extremely ill, and having been or¬ 
dered by her physician to England, as soon as 
she could possibly have borne the removal. And 
further, colonel Stewart directed me to leave the 
same charges with my subaltern which he had 
given me, and to return straight to Jersey as soon 
as I had seen Mrs. Jekyll to England. The same 
injunctions were severally repeated to me. 






105 


N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 

— ...—- >■- - = 

'The recruiting party having been detained until 
the following day, (some unlooked-for incident 
having prevented the sailing of the packet on the 
night of the 22d of February,) the very uncom¬ 
fortable sensations which I not unnaturally felt 
on reflecting upon the truly deplorable situation 
Mrs. Jekyll was under, (without relative or fe¬ 
male friend who could have afforded that care and 

* \ 

attention which seemed to me absolutely essential 
to her existence, and being but indifferently pro¬ 
vided with domestic attendants,) prompted me to 

\ !f;'r , A 

entreat, on the morning of the 23d of February, 
that colonel Stewart would be pleased to permit 
the subaltern to accompany me, whom the colo¬ 
nel had promised should follow me, that I might 
not sail under the painful apprehension of being 
detained in Jersey much longer than was intended 
by colonel Stewart, in case no vessel should offer 
a passage until the following packet. I likewise 
mentioned to colonel Stewart, that at my request 

lieutenant Warner * (now captain) had kindly 

% 

assured me, that with much cheerfulness he would 

- t 

* See comments on colonel Stewart's defence. 





106 


THE VINDICATION OF 


voluntarily proceed upon that duty with me, pro¬ 
vided it should meet the perfect approbation of 
himself. Colonel Stewart was not pleased, which 
he clearly evinced by his manner, at my praying 
that captain Warner should embark with me. 
However, he promised to comply with my sup¬ 
plication, and again repeated the leave * which he 


* The leave being given in that particular instance was 
most unquestionably fully established by the testimony of 
Mr. Havelock, as appears upon the proceedings of the court 
martial. 

The names of major Cameron, Mr. Salmond, and Mr. 
Havelock were given in by me as the evidences by whom 1 
expected to have established the fact of the leave having been 
granted by colonel Stewart, previous to my departure from 
Guernsey. Most improvidently I suffered a (perhaps mis¬ 
taken) zeal for the individual interest of the 43d regiment 
to prevent my ascertaining the nature and extent of the 
testimony which any officer could have given me in support 
of my charges; nor did I reflect that major Cameron might 
have only heard merely a few words of a long conversation, 
(on the evening of the 22d of February,) in which colonel 
Stewart gave me leave to return from Jersey, after passing a 
few days there ; neither did it occur to me that major Ca¬ 
meron’s mind, having, at the same time, been engaged in 
converse with other officers upon other topics, would have 
received but such imperfect and confused ideas, that he 
could not have given any decisive testimony upon the point 
of the leave granted to me in his presence. Yet it is of jm« 


i 




N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


1 


107 

i 

had several times before given me, by telling me, 
that as soon as I had established my party in 
Jersey I might return. 

portance that major Cameron should have perfectly remem¬ 
bered Mr. Salmond's being present in the mess-room during 
the whole of the conversation between colonel Stewart and 
myself; for it might reasonably be inferred, that had Mr. 
Salmond appeared in evidence, there would have been two 
most positive witnesses to have established that fact; one of 
whom would have proved it to have been given on two dis¬ 
tinct occasions, and in two separate places ; for Mr. Have¬ 
lock deposed that, even after I had submitted to the arrest, 
and to have been ordered back to Jersey in disgrace, Mr. 
Salmond and himself exchanged mutual assurances of colonel 
Stewart’s having given me the leave to return from Jersey in 
the most full and unequivocal terms. 

Although Mr. Salmond’s name was given in by me in the 
beginning of March last, (in obedience to general Sir David 
Dundas’s peremptory commands to deliver instantaneously 
the names of my evidences, with my specific charges,) yet 
he was not ordered to attend the trial of colonel Stewart; 
and I was alone induced to proceed with the prosecution, 
without that officer's testimony, by a misplaced confidence 
that major Cameron would have so far supported that which 
was given by Mr. Havelock as to have saved myself from the 
charge of havmg advanced groundless accusations against my 
commanding officer; and by the suggestions of colonel 
Campbell, the assistant adjutant general, in which it was re¬ 
presented, that such trouble, uncertainty, and delay would 
attend the procuring of Mr. Salmond’s presence, as to occa¬ 
sion serious inconvenience to his Majesty’s service. 







108 


THE VINDICATION OF 

♦ I 

In the course of three or four days after I had 

* 

left Guernsey, lieutenant general Sir Hugh Dal- 
rymple, having heard from major Barclay (now 
of the 52d regiment, and who was then brigade 
major in the island of Guernsey,) that I was about 
to return from Jersey, expressed to colonel Stew¬ 
art the great surprise he felt at a circumstance he 
thought so incompatible with the spirit of orders 
which had proceeded through himself from the 
Commander in Chief, as that I should quit the 
duty I had been ordered upon without being re¬ 
lieved. Colonel Stewart, it is presumed, to ex¬ 
onerate himself from the displeasure of Sir Hugh 
Dairympie, most positively denied ever having 
given me any kind of leave whatever to return 
from my recruiting party; upon which Sir Hugh 
Dalrymple ordered that I should be placed under 
an arrest as soon as I should return from Jersey. 
Still colonel Stewart did (afterwards) request the 
lieutenant general’s permission to send major Hull 
to relieve me, which was granted. 

Having so far executed the orders of his Royal 
Highness the Commander in Chief, that I had 




A\ JEICYLL, ESQ. 


109 


enlisted near a hundred of the flower of the loyal 
Irish fencibles, and had ascertained that there 
remained no prospect of procuring above two or 
three men except those who had actually engaged 
themselves with me, I entreated a fortnight’s 
leave of absence from lieutenant general Gordon, 
stating that colonel Stewart had sanctioned the 
application on account of Mrs. Jekyll being very 
seriously indisposed, which I obtained. 

I returned to Guernsey on the 6th of March, 
taking with me a considerable number of volun¬ 
teers from the loyal Irish fencibles. Upon my 
landing in Guernsey I met major Barclay on the 
pier, who communicated to me, with assurances 
of deep regret, that Sir Hugh Dalrymple was ex¬ 
ceedingly angry at hearing of my intended return, 
and had ordered me under an arrest, in conse- 
quence of colonel Stewart's having reported to 
him that I was about to quit my recruiting party 
without his leave, and contrary to his very par¬ 
ticular orders. I most positively affirmed to ma¬ 
jor Barclay that my mind was perfectly at ease as 
to the subject of the arrest, from having had 









no 


THE VINDICATION OF 


the leave of colonel Stewart, and also that of lieu¬ 
tenant general Gordon, to return from Jersey, for 
the purpose of taking Mrs. Jekyll to England. 

However, when I reflected that an eclaircisse- 
ment could scarcely fail to involve colonel Stewart 
in a general court martial, a painful remembrance 
of the most afflicting weight of the displeasure of 
his Majesty and of his Royal Highness the Com¬ 
mander in Chief, from which the 43d regiment 
had at that time scarcely recovered, added to some 
scandalous reports which had been industriously 
circulated, and had affected the corps deeply in 
the public estimation, relating to the melancholy 
fate of colonel Stewart’s immediate predecessor, 
determined me to take upon myself the result of 
Sir Hugh Dalrymple’s displeasure. Nor can I 
apprehend that any liberal mind will for a mo¬ 
ment imagine a reflection to my dishonor, when 
> 

I acknowledge that after having most firmly main¬ 
tained to colonel Stewart that he could not but 
remember the giving me leave to return, prior to 
my quitting Guernsey, I voluntarily consented to 
allow my return to have been represented to Sir 






I 


N. JEKYLL, ESQ. , Ill 

Hugh Dalrymple as having proceeded alone from 
a misunderstanding on my part. Colonel Stewart 
having stated to that effect to Sir Hugh Dalrymple, 
the lieutenant general permitted my being released 
from the arrest in the evening of the same day 
that I was placed under that painful and degrading 
situation 

Colonel Stewart having obtained Sir Hugh Dal- 
rymple’s consent to send another captain to Jer¬ 
sey, for the purpose of relieving me, major Hull 
would have 

morning, had not the packet passed by (at the 
dawn of day) without coming to anchor or lying 
to, so that major Hull could not reach the pier in 
time to get on board after she had been descried; 
therefore it would be easy for me to prove that 
major Hull would have gone (and of course have 
prevented my return to Jersey) the morning after 
my release, and many hours prior to my being re- 

i i . , * 

* Colonel Stewart has represented in his defence that I 
was not released from my arrest until the time of my being 
reprimanded by Sir Hugh Dalrymple the following day.— 
(See Defence.) 


proceeded to Jersey the following 









112 THE VINDICATION OP 

primanded by Sir Hugh Dalrymple but from a 
mere accident. 

\ , i 

In the course of the morning of the 7th of 
March ("the day after my having been under an 
arrest), colonel Stewart irresistibly pressed a wish 

that I would return to Jersey, to convince Sir 

\ ^ 

Hugh Dalrymple that my leaving that island was 
not through any want of zeal for the duty on 
which I had been sent thither; the colonel assured 
me that he had no doubt of the party being re¬ 
called in the course of a week or ten days. Mrs. 
Jekyll appearing at that period rather surprisingly 
amended, I did not hesitate in complying with the 
colonel’s desire; on which account I accompanied 
colonel Stewart to the head quarters, and upon my 
introduction to the commander of the island I ex¬ 
pressed the deepest regret at having unwittingly 
incurred Sir Hugh Dalrymple’s displeasure; but 
still the lieutenant general, notwithstanding his 
having released me from the arrest the preceding 
evening, animadverted in the most severe and 

* This will appear, in my comments on the defence, a 
very important circumstance to be borne in mind* 








V 


N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


113 


> ■■ ■ ■ ■ -—i . 

painful manner upon my conduct in leaving my 
detachment. And then colonel Stewart affirmed, 
in the most possible solemn manner, upon the 
word and honor of an officer and a gentleman, 
that he had never uttered a syllable which could 
have led me to suppose, even for an instant, that 
any consideration whatever could have induced 
him to have acted so contrary to the spirit of 
orders proceeding from his Eoyal Highness the 
Commander in Chief, as to have given me per¬ 
mission to have left my detachment as I had done. 

* After which, colonel Stewart informed Sir Hugh 
Dalrymple that major Hull had missed his passage 
(from the circumstance I have just before de¬ 
scribed), and that he had arranged that I should 
proceed back to Jersey by the first vessel that 
should be bound for that island, to resume the 
command of the recruiting party. 

Although my humble indignation was raised to 
such a degree that I could not refrain from openly 
declaring my sentiments which the conduct of 
colonel Stewart could not fail to have excited in 
my breast; I feel it an indispensable point of ho- 


i 




114 


THE VINDICATION OF 


nor towards Sir Hugh Dalrymple here to affirm, 
that I did not assert (as lieutenant colonel Leigh¬ 
ton has deposed) in the lieutenant general’s 
presence, that colonel Stewart had actually 
given me the leave which he had so strenuously 
disavowed. 

It so happened that no vessel sailed for that 
island on the 7th or 8th of March, and on the 
Qth it blew so heavy a gale that the several traders 
which were to have sailed early on that morning 
Were afraid to put to sea. 

However, on the garrison parade of that morn¬ 
ing (Tuesday the Qth of March), Sir Hugh Dal¬ 
rymple passed the most painful and humiliating 
animadversions on my conduct in leaving my de¬ 
tachment, by applying to me, in the face of seve¬ 
ral regiments assembled under arms, the humili¬ 
ating epithet of “ that skulking captain.” 

Having now positive documents of that event, I 
have not the least sensation of diffidence in pre¬ 
suming to affirm to his Royal Highness the Com¬ 
mander in Chief that I can most fully substantiate 
every point specified in the preceding statement. 





N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


115 


of the several matters which formed the basis of 

my first charge. 

« / 

As to my second charge, I was unable to ad¬ 
vance with it, for the reasons which I stated to the 
court martial—that my principal witnesses did not 
support the testimony which they at first gave me, 
to enable me to proceed with it. 

However, I trust I could sufficiently prove the 
impressions which I invariably had of colonel 
Stewart’s conduct towards me, and also that those 
sentiments were so far from having been without 
foundation, as most honorably to exempt me from 
the imputation of having been instigated either by 
malice or falsehood in preferring my complaints 
against colonel Stewart. 

For I could shew, that in the island of Guern¬ 
sey my (late) company was actually in such a state 
of insubordination, that I had neither power nor 
authority to enforce obedience to those orders 
which I thought absolutely requisite to issue to 
the non-commissioned officers and privates for the 
interior economy of the company; particularly in 
the instance of orders I had frequently given out 

I 2 






116 


THE VINDICATION OF 


for causing the men’s names to have been affixed 

to their berths* or sleeping places* in the barrack 

» 

rooms (in compliance with a regimental order); 
scarcely is there a man of my late company who 
could not prove that I had gone into the barracks 
almost daily, for many weeks together* and had 
as often ordered a serjeant* named Cross* to get 
the names of the men attached to their respective 
berths* and that that and many other orders of 
mine* never were complied with. I could also 
shew that, when I have confined that very ser¬ 
jeant for the most unsoldierlike conduct* and even 
for a most pernicious and flagrant breach of ho¬ 
nesty towards a private of the same company* 
colonel Stewart has assembled the serjeant* then a 
prisoner, with other non-commissioned officers 
and privates of my late company* for the seeming 
purpose of an investigation* but has very passion¬ 
ately and most peremptorily refused me permission 
to lay open the case to him ; has released the ser¬ 
jeant upon his own vague and confused tale* which 
I could have proved (had I been allowed to speak), 
beyond all possible doubt* to have been utterly 




117 


N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 

false; and I was treated in an extreme unhandsome 
manner, in presence of those non-commissioned 
officers and privates, for having confined the ser- 
jeant; yet colonel Stewart, very shortly afterwards, 
twice ordered courts martial to investigate com¬ 
plaints of a very inferior nature, when that ser- 
jeant was confined at the instance of a young sub¬ 
altern*, whom I had appointed to distribute the 
pay of the company. It must likewise appear, 
that no non-commissioned officer or private of my 
compehy was ever suffered to be tried by a court 
martial, when confined by myself, during colonel 
Stewart’s command of the 43d regiment, notwith¬ 
standing the company was actually in such a state 
of insubordination as to have dared so far to have 
held my orders in open defiance, that after finding 
all exhortation to promote a spirit of discipline 
altogether ineffectual, when I have even repeat¬ 
edly issued (in the orderly book) the most positive 
orders for the company to assemble on its private 
parade half an hour before the usual time, on ac- 

* Lieutenant (now captain) Gardner. 

I 3 




\ 

118 THE VINDICATION OF 

count of the slovenly and unsoldierlike conduct 
which at that time prevailed in the company to a 
most serious degree, the utmost exertions of my¬ 
self, with the aid of my Serjeants and corporals, 
could not, upon any one occasion, enforce obedi¬ 
ence to those orders; so far from it, lieutenant 
colonel Mackenzie (late major of the 43d regi¬ 
ment) has, at the same period, confined the whole 
company to the barracks, and ordered several ex¬ 
traordinary parades in one day, for not turning out 

for the parade until a long while after every pther 

J V 

company had been formed on the general parade, 
and for then appearing extremely dirty and un¬ 
soldierlike. 

Lieutenant colonel Mackenzie must well re¬ 
member my having formally reported to him that 
the excessive unmartial conduct which then so 
evidently pervaded my company, I attributed to 
colonel Stewart’s not affording me that support in 
the execution of my duty which was indispensable 
to the existence of good order and military disci¬ 
pline ; and that I also stated that the men had 
witnessed such instances of disrespect from colo- 




N. JEKYLLj tSQi 


119 


nel Stewart towards me, in the duty of my com¬ 
pany, that, knowing they might proceed to almost 
any length with impunity, the soldier presumed 
to treat the authority of myself and of my non¬ 
commissioned officers with total disregard. I 

further believe, that lieutenant colonel Mackenzie 

♦ 

will also bear in mind his communicating that 
statement to colonel Stewart, and that in his pre¬ 
sence I persisted in the same to the colonel. 

That these circumstances were not suffered 
by me to lay dormant, and afterwards brought for ¬ 
ward from any sudden impulse of spleen, I trust I 
can evince most fully and most honorably, by 
shewing that they were not stated to the Com¬ 
mander in Chief until I found every assiduous ex¬ 
ertion and expedient to convince colonel Stewart 
of the utter injustice of the extraordinary series of 
persecution which I have laboured under from 
him, to have been wholly delusive and inef- 

> i 

fectual 

To Lieutenant Colonel Gordon, Kc. Tc. 

* See Introduction. 

I 4 



i 




120 


THE VINDICATION OF 


COMMENTS 

ON 

COLONEL STEWART’s DEFENCE. 

My case not having been fully evidenced by the 
general court martial held on colonel Stewart, 
from the circumstances of my having suffered 
an excessive ardor of zeal for the interest of 

his Majesty’s service to have prevented my 

♦ • ’*** 

calling forward a sufficiency of testimony to 
confirm the several matters contained in the 
foregoing narrative, and likewise from my 
not having been sufficiently aware of the 
established rules of general courts martial, to 
have embraced the proper opportunity of 
stating some essential considerations to the 
Court; i most humbly and most fervently 
presume to pray that his Royal Highness the 
Commander in Chief would further be pleased 
most graciously to take into mature consider- 
ation the following important comments upon 




/ 


N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 121 

—————————————■———————■.—m— 

the several matters advanced by colonel Stew¬ 
art in opposition to the accusations preferred 
by me before the general court martial assem¬ 
bled at Sandgate, on the 25th of June last; 
trusting they cannot fail to excite the liveliest 
sensations of interest for my unfortunately 
deeply injured character: 

Colonel Stewart states, in his very feeble de- 
fence > that the circumstance which led to the 
first charge originated in his having, in the month 
of February 1802, directed me to proceed with a 
detachment to Jersey, for the purpose of recruit¬ 
ing ; that those directions were given by the colo¬ 
nel because I was the first officer for that duty ; 
that I represented to the colonel, at the time, how 
much I was distressed at being obliged to quit 
Guernsey, as I must necessarily leave Mrs. Jekyll, 
who was confined by a dangerous illness; that 
humanity dictated to him the propriety of doing 
what was in his power to alleviate the sufferings of 
myself , and he was induced to assure me that 





122 


THE VINDICATION OF 


os soon as he couldfind another officer to relieve me 
I should be recalled. 

To mark the extreme inconsistency of those 
declarations, I shall beg leave, in the first place, to 
entreat the earnest attention of the Commander 
in Chief to the following transcript of colonel 
Stewart’s own orders, which now stand upon every 
orderly book (of that date) in the 43d regiment: 

R. M. O. Amhurst Barracks, Feb. 22, 1802. 

A detachment, consisting of one captain, two 
serjeants, one drummer, and one private, will em¬ 
bark for Jersey on board the packet now in the 
harbour. Captain Jekyll, who is for the above 
duty, will report himself upon his arrival there to 
lieutenant general Gordon, and follow his further 
directions. 

R. M. O. Amhurst Barracks, Feb. 23, 1802. 

A subaltern is added to the party under captain 

Jekyll, and will embark with them accordingly: 

% 

for this duty lieutenant Dumoulin. 




N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


123 


R. A. O. Amhurst Barracks, Feb. 23, 1802. 

Lieutenant Delisle having obtained permission 
to take lieutenant Dumoulin’s detachment for him 
ensign Champ will be for piquet this evening. 

When 1 shall have incontrovertibly proved that 
colonel Stewart had given a most unconditional 
consent to major Hull’s taking that duty for me, 
prior to the colonel’s having afforded me even the 
slightest shadow of reason to imagine that he en¬ 
tertained the least degree of wish that I should 
proceed with the recruiting party to Jersey ; the 
inconsistency of my having been sent to Jersey 
because I was thefirst officer for duty will be suffi¬ 
ciently evident by the after regimental orders of 
the 23d of February ; for if I had been sent with 
the recruiting party on that account alone, how 
extraordinary must it not appear that the subaltern 
(whose tour of duty it is shewn to have been) 
should have been permitted to exchange that duty, 
at the mere request of the other officer who went 
under my command!!! And when it should be 
observed that I was sent to Jersey only through 





THE VINDICATION OF 


124 

some little sensations of pique towards the late 
captain Satterthwaite, I shall be exempt, I trust, 
from the imputation of ingratitude, when I ac¬ 
knowledge that I did not embark under the suppo¬ 
sition of being indebted to colonel Stewart for the 
exercise of any uncommon impulse of humanity. 

As to any assurance colonel Stewart had given 
me that I was to have been recalled “ as soon as 
“ he could find another captain to relieve me 
of the many considerations I could advance to 
shew the utter improbability of such an event, I 
shall at present urge but the few following re¬ 
marks : 

Colonel Stewart, I think, cannot state any ade¬ 
quate motive for having intended to place himself 
in the awkward situation of reporting to Sir Hugh 
Dalrymple my having sailed in command of the 
detachment for Jersey, and of requesting so imme¬ 
diately as in the course of two or three days, that 
another captain might be sent to relieve me, be¬ 
cause Mrs. Jekyll continued in the same state of 
serious indisposition that she had been in at the 
time of my departure; for it is to be supposed 





N. JEKYLLj ESQ. 


125 


that of course some reason would be given for so¬ 
liciting the lieutenant general’s sanction to that 
measure. Colonel Stewart has not assigned, nei¬ 
ther can he, any feasible cause which could have 
operated in his rpind to have overruled an anxious 
wish u to alleviate my sufferings as far as in his 
“ powerf to have prevented his actually comply¬ 
ing with the request of major Hull to have pro¬ 
ceeded in my stead with the detachment at first, 
especially if the colonel had seriously intended 
sending that officer after me in the course of a few 
days. 

It is true that major Hull would have sailed for 
the purpose of relieving me some days prior to my 
return, if a passage could have been procured; 
but then it is to be remarked, that it was not until 
after Sir Hugh Dalrymple had surprised colonel 
Stewart by the sentiments he expressed relative to 
the detachment being left without a captain, that 
the colonel made any application to the lieutenant 
general for my being relieved; and perhaps it 
might not be thought wholly unlikely that colonel 
Stewart might have felt some little emotions of 




126’ 


THE VINDICATION OF 


serious alarm at the manner in which Sir Hugh 
Dalrymple spoke concerning my leaving Jersey, 
and had denied the fact of having given me the 
license, which I trust I shall shew could not at 
that period have escaped his recollection, under a 
hope that he might have been enabled to have 
sent major Hull off instantaneously, and that he 
would have reached Jersey ere I should have sailed 
from thence (as it was not above three or four days 
subsequent to the party’s having left Guernsey 
that that conversation took place between Sir 
Hugh Dalrymple and colonel Stewart), and that in 
that case no further serious notice would have been 
taken by Sir Hugh Dalrymple upon the subject. 

The more than probability of colonel Stewart’s 
having intimated nothing to me of any intent to 
send another captain to have relieved me, as well 
as the utter impossibility of my ever having had 
such a supposition, must be very obvious indeed 
from the several very extraordinary circumstances 
(all of which I can most fully prove) which at¬ 
tended the subaltern’s proceeding under my com¬ 
mand to Jersey. 




N. JEKYLLj ESQ,. 


127 


, In the first place, it will evidently be seen, by 
the regimental orders of the 22d and 23d of 
February 1802, that no subaltern was intended to 
have accompanied the recruiting party to Jersey 
at the time of my being ordered to take charge of 
it, and that if I had sailed from Guernsey on the 
evening of the 22d of February, I should have 
actually proceeded without a subaltern; that the 
packet was fully expected (when I was ordered 
to embark) to have sailed before the next 
morning, I can evince far beyond the reach of 

i 

uncertainty. 

That I most fully believed the subaltern to have 
been ordered with me merely for the special end 
that I might have procured a leave of absence, on 
account of Mrs. Jekyll’s unfortunate situation, 
shall most undoubtedly demonstrate, by stating, 
that captain Warner (now of the 40th regiment) 
perfectly remembers my having called upon him 
early on the morning of the 23d of February, and 
requesting very earnestly that he would consent to 
go with me upon the recruiting party to Jersey ; 
also that he authorised my informing colonel 







128 


THE VINDICATION OF 


Stewart that he would cheerfully accede to my 
wishes, provided the arrangement should not ap¬ 
pear in any degree unpleasant to the commanding 
officer. 

Lieutenant Delisie has now furnished me with 
documents, proving that on my passage from 
Guernsey I informed him of my having had colo¬ 
nel Stewart’s permission to request a short leave of 
absence from lieutenant general Gordon as soon as 
I should have passed a short time in Jersey, for the 
purpose of conveying Mrs. Jekyll to England ; 
and that in about ten days after my arrival in Jer¬ 
sey I gave the recruiting party under his charge, 
and, having obtained lieutenant general Gordon’s 
leave of absence, returned to Guernsey with a 
view of proceeding to England; also that I re¬ 
turned unexpectedly in the course of a few days, 
and related to him that colonel Stewart had de¬ 
nied having given me permission to quit my de¬ 
tachment, and that consequently I had been put 
under an arrest, by order of Sir Hugh Dalrymple, 
And called fC a skulking captain” by the lieutenant 
general on the garrison parade. 






\ 


N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 129 

Major Barclay has deposed (upon colonel Stew¬ 
art’s trial), that on my landing in Guernsey, when 
he communicated to me the very surprising intel¬ 
ligence of my being ordered under the arrest, I 
assured him of my mind being then most perfectly 

at ease as to the cause of the arrest, and that I 

% 

most positively maintained to him my having had 
the leave of lieutenant general Gordon, as also that 
of colonel Stewart. 

It is very material also to reflect with mature 
consideration that my object in returning from my 

9 \ 

recruiting party was invariably avowed to have 
been for the only purpose of conveying Mrs. Je- 
kyll from Guernsey to England ; and to bear in 
mind, at the same time, that I returned to Guern¬ 
sey, in full regimentals, at the head of a large 
batch of volunteers from the loyal Irish fencibles ; 
which circumstance I could not but have been 
aware must have proclaimed my return both to 
Sir Hugh Dalrymple and to colonel Stewart: 
therefore it is not to be presumed that I should 
have been so extremely devoid of every species of 
common sense as to have thought I should have 

K 








130 


THE VINDICATION Of 

- . . . .. — . . . - ■ ■»- 

been permitted to have gone from Guernsey to 
England^ even if I had procured lieutenant gene- 

v— i 

\ 

ral Gordon’s leave of absence; through false pre¬ 
tences, when my being in Guernsey was so pub¬ 
licly known ; and had I been so utterly insensible 
to honorable and prudent motives, it cannot be 
imagined that I should have been so astonishingly 
rash as to have gone back from Jersey in a vessel 
whose decks were crowded with soldiers*. 

Colonel Stewart next states, and with great in- 
consistency, that ec major Cameron’s deposition 
cc corroborated his (colonel Stewart’s) statement,” 
in contradiction to my assertion of having had 
colonel Stewart’s leave of absence, cc in the most 
“ direct and pointed terms/’ But, on the con¬ 
trary, major Cameron deposed, that during the 
conversation which passed in the mess room, on 
the evening of the 22 d of February, relative to my 
returning from Jersey, he was sitting at some 
considerable distance from colonel Stewart and 
myself, engaged in different converse with other 

* See Introduction. 


'-r- 


V 









Ni JEKYLL, ESQ. 


131 


officers, so that he was not at all attending to what 
was said between colonel Stewart and myself ; only 
a few words by mere accident confusedly caught 
his ears, of which he stated himself to have re¬ 
tained so very imperfecta recollection that he con¬ 
sidered himself wholly incapable of giving any 
decisive evidence concerning my having had colo¬ 
nel Stewart’s leave to return from Jersey. But 
still, from some words which he did hear, the 
major imagined that it was colonel Stewart’s in¬ 
tention to have sent another officer (very shortly) 
to have relieved me. However major Cameron 
deposed, in reply to colonel Stewart’s own and 
only question, that he did not recollect to have 
understood, from what he heard in the mess room, 
that colonel Stewart’s sending another officer to 

relieve me was the only condition on which I was 

\ 

to have returned ; therefore, from what appeared 
on the proceedings of the court martial, major 
Cameron’s testimony, so far from corroborating 
colonel Stewart’s assertions in the most direct and 
positive manner, may be fairly set down as wholly 
nugatory upon the point of my having had colonel 

K 2 






I 




l3 o • the vindication of 

__ • 

Stewart’s leave; especially when it might reason 
ably be inferred that the imperfect impression 
which major Cameron appeared to have imbibed, 
might have arisen from some words which he 
might have heard when colonel Stewart was speak¬ 
ing of sending a subaltern on purpose to enable me 
to obtain lieutenant general Gordon’s leave of 
absence. 

Colonel Stewart has endeavored to attach con¬ 
siderable weight to the circumstance of his having 
pronounced, with much evident warmth, that most 
full and positive leave which Mr. Salmond and Mr. 
Havelock heard in the barrack yard on the morn¬ 
ing of the 23d of February; but so far from that 
vehemence of temper seeming to me susceptible 
of the construction which the colonel labors to 
impute to those little emotions of passion, I most 
humbly conceive that it would very naturally be 
supposed that if I had addressed colonel Stewart 
with any matter or style of expression which would 
have justly excited his wrath or indignation, such 
unbecoming conduct would not have produced 
that most clear and decided indulgence which ap- 


/ 

















\ 


N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 133 

I 

pears, by the proceedings of the court martial, 

to have terminated that conversation; at least, had 

% 

not colonel Stewart have felt that it had been pre¬ 
viously irrevocably given ; but so far from at¬ 
tempting to ascribe to my own cause any undue 
inferences, I think it incumbent, in consistency 
with that candor which I trust will be found to 
pervade the preceding narrative and these remarks, 
to declare, that that warmth, upon which the colo¬ 
nel has built so much stress, was excited by my 
having earnestly petitioned that captain Warner 
might accompany me to Jersey, from the motives 

before stated, which it appears was not perfectly 

\ 

agreeable to colonel Stewart. Nor would it be 
difficult for me to evince, that colonel Stewart was 
much in the habit of venting a warmth of temper 
amounting to great petulance, even upon the most 
trivial occurrences, to officers under his command 
who were not proverbially distinguished as objects 
of his extraordinary partiality; and also, that I 
have felt myself under the necessity of complain¬ 
ing to colonel Stewart, that the unhandsome 
warmth which I frequently experienced from the 

k 3 


i 






134 


THE VINDICATION OF 


colonel occasioned my feeling much pain in ad¬ 
dressing myself to him. 

As to the importunity with which colonel Stew¬ 
art has more than insinuated that I pressed to be 
excused from going to Jersey, I feel it requisite, in 
justice to my own character, as well as to the hu¬ 
manity of colonel Stewart, to affirm, that after I 
was directed to take charge of the recruiting party 
ordered to Jersey, I never did request, in any 
shape whatever, that I might be excused from going 
on that duty. If I really had urged such a prayer 
with fervency, upon the plea of Mrs. Jekyll being 
dangerously ill and in a truly comfortless situation, 
(after having given a seeming most possible un¬ 
conditional permission to major Hull’s, and after¬ 
wards to captain Satterthwaite’s taking that duty 
for me,) in what a light must the humanity of 
colonel Stewart appear in peremptorily refusing 
such a supplication, as it must be imagined mine 
would have been, and so readily, at the same in¬ 
stant, excusing the subaltern officer who was or¬ 
dered under my command on account of his 
being the first of that rank for duty, 4 at the 





N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 135 

mere request of the officer who went in his 
place!!! 

It might be presumed, almost as a matter of 
course, that neither of the officers who were on 
Sir Hugh Dalrymple’s staff were summoned to 
prove the fact of colonel Stewart’s giving me the 

i 

leave, as it must be regarded as unlikely that 

% 

either of those officers would have been in a situa¬ 
tion to have heard a conversation between colonel 
Stewart and myself which it might be conjectured 
would have been somewhat tinctured with indif¬ 
ference towards an order proceeding from his 
Royal Highness the Commander in Chief. Lieu¬ 
tenant colonel Leighton and Major Barclay have 

given every support to that matter which I could 

, % 

well have expected ; the one confirming my having 

¥ 

asserted that I had had the licence which the colo¬ 
nel so strenuously denied prior to the arrest, and 
the other stating that I maintained the same thing 
even after these humiliating occurrences: although 
lieutenant colonel Leighton’s memory has been 
defective as to the particular time of his having 

heard me utter those declarations, yet it must be 

/ 

K 4 


% 





136 


THE VINDICATION OF 


admitted to be of no small moment to my own 
reputation to shew that that transaction was not 
brought forward, after so great a lapse of time, in 
a different shape to that in which the conduct of 

i 

colonel Stewart, in that instance, has invariably 

N, I 

appeared to me. 

I cannot but feel too high a degree of respect 
for Sir Hugh Dalrymple to think it necessary to 
offer any further remarks upon those points of 
lieutenant colonel Leighton’s deposition which 
appeared to give an unfavorable complexion to my 

charge, than to refer to the degradations which 

. 

colonel Stewart states in his defence that I sus¬ 
tained from the lieutenant general; being well 
assured that a very little reflection must most 
thoroughly persuade the lieutenant colonel of the 
defalcation of his recollection, beingeven far greater 
than he supposed it to have been. Lieutenant 
colonel Leighton prefaced his deposition with an 
avowal that he retained but so very confused and 
extreme imperfect recollection of what he had 
witnessed upon that occasion, as to have felt him¬ 
self incompetent to afford any positive testimony 


i 













4 


137 


N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 

upon the subject: but surely lieutenant colonel 

N 

Leighton, or any other person, having but a very 
faint knowledge of Sir Hugh Dalrymple’s charac¬ 
ter, could not suppose he would have treated me 
with the extreme degradations which colonel Stew¬ 
art has so strongly laboured to persuade the court 

> / 

martial that I did experience, if colonel Stewart 

■ i 

had but admitted even the possibility of a mutual 
misunderstanding having existed. Had the cir¬ 
cumstances really occurred as lieutenant colonel 
Leighton has represented, my charge then would 
have been most malicious indeed. 

But upon a re-examination of the proceedings 
of the general court martial held on colonel Stew¬ 
art, I cannot but consider myself as most wonder¬ 
fully indebted for a miraculous instance of the 
Divine interposition in the administering of justice ; 
for colonel Stewart has, in his own defence, stated 
to the utmost extent, and even gone far beyond 
actual occurrences of that part of my charge 
which'alone I could not otherwise have substan¬ 
tiated, owing to the amazing defalcation of me¬ 
mory on the part of those officers who composed 


i 






133 


THE VINDICATION OF 


Sir Hugh Dairymple’s staff; for colonel Stewart 
states (in his defence), that “ having returned 
“ from Jersey without (his) permission, I ivcis 
“ involved in those humiliating scenes of which ” 
I u complained and further, colonel Stewart 
endeavors to impress on the court martial a belief 
that the whole matter was most fully investigated 
by Sir Hugh Dalrymple; and also “ that by Sir 
“ Hugh Dalrymple’s orders I was put under an 
“ arrest, from which I was released on his (colo- 
“ nel Stewart’s) accepting the acknowledgment” 
which was made to him by myself; “ and that Sir 
<( Hugh Dalrymple still further marked his opi- 

' i 

“ nion of the transaction by reprimanding me and 

t 

“ sending me hack to Jersey ; although captain 
“ Hull, who had been appointed to relieve me, 

“ but had been prevented by an accident from 

„ ' 

“ sailing previous to my return, was willing to 
“ have gone in my place.” 

Sir Hugh Dalrymple, if called upon, will certify, 

* 

of course, that at the time of my being repri¬ 
manded, or previously, I did not assert that I had 
actually had the leave (which the colonel had de- 









N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 139 

_ f ‘ • 

nied) to him; that consequently no investigation 
was made by Sir Hugh Dalrymple into the trans¬ 
action, before his staff, or upon any other occa¬ 
sion ; also, that I made no apology whatever, in 
his presence, to colonel Stewart; that I was re¬ 
leased from the arrest the same evening of my 

having been placed under that painful situation; 

\ 

and that the lieutenant general understood, and 
expected that major Hull would have proceeded 
to Jersey, in my place, when he (Sir Hugh Dal¬ 
rymple) assented to my release ; and lastly, that I 
was not sent back to Jersey by any peremptory 
command from Sir Hugh Dalrymple , but that I 
returned by the lieutenant general’s consent, in 
compliance with the special pleasure of. colonel 
Stewart. 

Thus, every other part of my first charge stand- 
ing incontestibly proved, it remains only to con¬ 
trast the strong tide of the most positive and most 
essential circumstantial evidence that almost ever 
occurred to establish the fact of a leave of absence 
having been acceded to by a commanding officer 

of a regiment, to the series of astonishing incon- 

♦ 

N . * 


i 




/ 


140 THE VINDICATION OF 

I 

sistencies and most glaring inaccuracies, framed 

i -' 

under the truly feeble defence of colonel Stewart, 

to shew that I have not preferred malicious and 

/ 

groundless accusations against colonel Stewart, as 

asserted by the unanimous declaration of the gene- 
/ . • 
ral court martial held on colonel Stewart: where¬ 
fore I confidently trust that the Commander in 
Chief will adopt such measures as in his wisdom 
may seem best calculated to afford me an instance 
of that full and impartial justice which has hither¬ 
to characterised his Royal Highness’s command 
of the British army. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your most obedient and 

most humble servant, 
NATHANIEL JEKYLL. 















N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


141 


From Lieutenant Colonel Gordon to N. Jekyll , Esq. 

SIR, Horse Guards, 7th Nov. 1804. 

I have received and laid before the Com¬ 
mander in Chief your letter of yesterday’s date, 
with the accompanying statement; and am di¬ 
rected to acquaint you, that his Royal Highness 
sees no reason to recommend an alteration beinar 
made in the former decision. 

I have the honor to he, Sir, 

Your most obedient humble servant, 

J. W. GORDON. 


(Copy.) 

To Field Marshal his Royal Highness the Commander 

in Chief , Sic. Sic, Sic. 

SIR, 

In full conviction that my case must be found, 
upon a mature investigation, to have been very 
far indeed from having been really evidenced by 
the general court martial lately held on colonel 






142 THE VINDICATION OF 

Stewart of his Majesty’s 43d regiment; with the 
most possible humility I beg leave most earnestly 
to pray., that your Royal Highness would conde¬ 
scend to honor the following statement of essen- 
tial matters with serious attention ; being confi¬ 
dently assured that they cannot fail to interest 
your Royal Highness’s most benevolent and fos¬ 
tering breast in the relief of my much injured and 
deeply wounded reputation. 

On the 6th instant* I had the honor of address- 

\ 

ing to lieutenant colonel Gordon a statement of 
the several facts upon which I founded my first 
charge; also of matters calculated to prove that 
my second was not wholly without foundation ; 
to which I added such comments upon the incon¬ 
gruities and inaccuracies contained in the feeble 
defence of colonel Stewart* as* I trust* even upon 
a very cursory view* must clearly demonstrate that 
at length I am in actual possession of such docu¬ 
ments as might, in my own justification* substan¬ 
tiate my first charge most fully; and also con¬ 
firm my several declarations (which I conclude 
have been conveyed to your Royal Highness) in 
/ 


I 









I 


N. JEKYLL, ESQ 143 

/ 

my letters to colonel Clinton and to lieutenant 
colonel Gordon, that my not having substantiated 
that charge before the court martial, arose from a 
too rigid adherence to a perhaps false point of ho¬ 
nor towards the interest of the 43d regiment (from 
a fear that my appeal might have borne the ap¬ 
pearance of being tinted with the spirit of cabal, 
which had formerly so seriously involved the corps 
under the dreadful weight of the high displeasure 
of the most gracious Sovereign, and of your Royal 
Highness), in not having, previous to givingin the 
names of my witnesses, and prior to the assem¬ 
bling of the general court martial, examined the 
several officers of the 43d regiment as to the na¬ 
ture and extent of the testimony which they were 
capable of affording me ; likewise (from an exces- 
sive degree of anxiety to avoid, to the utmost pos¬ 
sible degree, inconvenience to his Majesty’s ser¬ 
vice at a seeming awful and critical juncture) in 

i 

not imploring the attendance of lieutenant general 
Sir Hugh Dalrymple; also, in proceeding upon 
the trial of colonel Stewart without two very ma¬ 
terial evidences, whose names I had given in agree- 


s 





144- 


THE VINDICATION OF 


i 


able to the express commands of general Sir David 
Dundas in the month of March last, but who did 
not attend the court martial, owing to their not 
having been summoned before the sitting of the 
court martial was appointed in the general orders 
of the southern district. I have shewn, in my 
statement of the 6th instant, that had Mr. Sal- 
mond (the late surgeon of the 43d regiment) and 
lieutenant Delisle (also late of the 43d regiment, 
and who accompanied the recruiting party under 

my command to Jersey) been present, I should 

* 

have produced such a chain of the most positive 
and very strong circumstantial evidence, as I be¬ 
lieve have very rarely occurred to support an offi¬ 
cer’s assertions of having received a sanction from 
a commanding officer of a regiment to obtain a 
leave of absence. 

In my own defence, I should scarcely imagine it 
to be more than requisite to prove the astonishing 
inconsistences and palpable inaccuracies which co¬ 
lonel Stewart has urged in his defence, to confirm 
that part of my first charge which related to my 
having had colonel Stewart's permission to leave 








N. JEKYLL, ESQ,. 


145 


Jersey. The other parts of that charge colonel 
Stewart has most thoroughly confirmed, notwith¬ 
standing the amazingly confused and incorrect 
ideas which lieutenant colonel Leighton and major 
Barclay are stated upon the proceedings to have 
had of the circumstances which I represented my¬ 
self to have encountered, in their presence, from 
lieutenant general Sir Hugh Dalrymple ; for co¬ 
lonel Stewart there unquestionably maintains, that 
I actually did experience from Sir Hugh Dalrymple 
those humiliating scenes of which I had complained. 
Indeed the colonel does more; for, even there, 
he advances serious digressions from facts, 
as I have shewn in the conclusion of my com- 

i » 

ments on the defence. 

As to my second charge, I was obliged to relin¬ 
quish it principally from the circumstance of my 
evidences not then supporting the testimony which 
at first they gave me, and partly from having 
been convinced of its being too generally expressed 
to have afforded me any confidence of being en¬ 
abled to support it fully by the specific instances 
which I meant to have adduced; however, to 

L 




146 


THE VINDICATION OF 


shew that it was not wholly unfounded, I could 
easily prove that the whole of my late company 
was in such a serious state of insubordination, that 
I was utterly unable to enforce obedience to orders 
which appeared to me absolutely requisite for the 
existence of good order and military discipline ; 
that when the company was detached under the 
command of lieutenant colonel Mackenzie, I have 
formally reported to him that the extreme unsol- 

V 

dierlike conduct which most conspicuously per¬ 
vaded my company, arose entirely from my never 
having been supported in my duty by colonel Stew¬ 
art, and from my having experienced from the 
colonel such marked disrespect in presence of my 
non-commissioned officers and privates, that the 
company, knowing they might with me proceed to 
almost any lengths with impunity, dared totally to 
disregard all my orders : and further, that when 
I have confined a serjeant, after a long series of 
highly improper conduct, for a flagrant breach of 
duty, and even of honesty, towards a private of the 
same company, colonel Stewart had assembled' 
several other non-commissioned officers and also 







N. JEKYLL, E5<2. 


141 


several privates, for the seeming purpose of inves¬ 
tigating the matter ; and the colonel, in an ex¬ 
treme harsh manner, repeatedly refused to suffer 
me to detail the circumstances which had come to 
my knowledge previous to having confined the 
serjeant, and released the serjeant upon his own 
vague tale, which I could have proved by the per¬ 
sons then present to have been more than impro¬ 
bable ; and that I suffered, for having discharged 
what I conceived an indispensable duty in confin¬ 
ing the serjeant, such excessive harsh and unhand¬ 
some treatment, that I really felt myself unwar¬ 
rantably insulted, and exceedingly degraded in the 
eyes of the non-commissioned officers and privates 
of my (late) company. 

It seems to me very material to state, that my 
charges \Vere given in under very great disadvan¬ 
tages ; for when I was called upon to deliver in 
my specific charges, I stated, to general Sir David 
Dundas, my mind to have been so greatly agitated 
that I felt myself very incompetent to the arduous 
task of forming my complaints under specific 




148 


THE VINDICATION OF 


heads, without the aid of counsel, or of some ex¬ 
perienced military friends ; and in vain besought 
the indulgence of such assistance ; and also, that 
when I had the honor of imploring your Royal 
Highness (through the adjutant general) on the 
26 th of March, to permit my amending the 
charges transmitted through general Sir David 
Dundas, my prayer was unfortunately ineffectual; 
that agitation of mind was not in a small measure 
created by the dreadful situation I felt myself un¬ 
der, in having no alternative to giving in my 
charges under such exceeding unfavorable circum¬ 
stances, but that of acceding to conditions held 
out to me by the honorable major general Forbes, 
which must have irretrievably branded my name as 
an infamous villain; for had I declared, in presence 
of the major general and of the officers of the 43d 
regiment, that I had advanced the most serious 
accusations to the dishonor of a commanding 
officer, under a thorough conviction of their being 
wholly false and unjust, and at the same time have 
supplicated colonel Stewart’s forgiveness for such 





N. JEKYLL, ESC^. 


149 


unpardonable and villanous conduct, I have tot 
bless my Creator, that I cannot imagine your Royal 
Highness would have allowed my retaining a com¬ 
mission in his Majesty’s service; that the officers 
of any one of his Majesty’s regiments would after¬ 
wards have suffered me to have sat down in their 
company; or that, bearing my then truly infa¬ 
mous name, I should have found a corner in the 
British dominions where I could have looked one 
of his Majesty’s subjects in the face, without be¬ 
holding those emotions of indignation and abhor¬ 
rence which I should most justly have deserved. 

Permit me now, Sir, with the most profound 
respect, and with the most possible degree of hu¬ 
mility, to add, that when I reconciled my mind 
to proceed in the prosecution of my charges with¬ 
out the most essential of those evidences whom I 
could have found to have supported them, it was 
under the same confidence which I still have, that 
your Royal Highness would not, in my case, suffer 
any honorable motive, which could appear to have 
had for a basis a zeal for the interest of his Majes- 

L 3 




150 THE VINDICATION OF 

\ , % % 

.. . . 

tv’s service, finally to labor under disadvantages 

* l . > * , 

inconsistent with that impartial justice which has 
hitherto so gloriously distinguished your Royal 
Highness’s command of the British army.— 
Wherefore I humbly presume most earnestly to 
implore, that your Royal Highness would be 
pleased to pray that his Majesty would, with his 
wonted benevolence, afford me an opportunity of 
proving that I have not alleged groundless and 
malicious charges against colonel Stewart of his 

\ « ”, j 

43 d regiment. 

Having reason to apprehend that your Royal 
Highness has been greatly prejudiced against me 
by a statement of the officers of the 43d regi¬ 
ment, contradicting a seeming inaccuracy con¬ 
tained in a paragraph of my letter to the honor¬ 
able major general Forbes, bearing date the 7th 
of February ultimo ; I beg leave to acknowledge 
that, upon a more calm reflection, I perceive that 
in that instance I have written my sentiments in a 
very different manner to what I should have done 
in more collected moments; and that I am fully 




N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


151 


sensible my words are calculated to convey a very 

% 

different meaning to what I intended them to im¬ 
ply ; but to shew that they were not utterly unjus¬ 
tifiable, I beg leave to trespass so far upon your 
Royal Highness’s most precious moments as to 
observe, that they were chiefly founded upon the 
several circumstances of colonel Stewart’s extreme 
instability of conduct having been much spoken 
of in the 'regiment; indeed, I could particularize 
instances which I have heard from officers of un¬ 
impeached veracity, and also have heard the sub¬ 
ject of frequent conversation, although of a dif¬ 
ferent nature, yet bearing a complexion not very 
foreign to the conduct imputed to the colonel in 
my first charge ; and likewise, from colonel Stew¬ 
art’s extraordinary partiality towards several of the 
junior officers * having been so strongly remarked 
in the regiment, that it has long been proverbial 
in the corps, that those young gentlemen abso¬ 
lutely commanded the regiment, and that no other 
officer could feel himself very comfortable with 


* See Introduction, 





152 


THE VINDICATION OF 


colonel Stewart, unless he should have the good 

fortune to be distinguished as one of the colonel’s 

\ 

minions. 

I have the honor to be, 

With the most profound respect and duty. 
Your Royal Highness’s 
Most obedient and most humble servant, 

NATH. JEKYLL, 

Late captain in his Majesty’s 43d regiment. 
Welbeck-street, November 12th, 1804. 


To his Royal Highness the Commander in Chief y 

Sic. Sic. Sic. 

SIR, 

With the most profound humility I presume 
to implore, that your Royal Highness would con¬ 
descend to suffer the several matters specified in 
my statement addressed to lieutenant colonel 
Gordon, on the 6th of November ultimo, and the 
letter which I had the honor of presenting to your 
Royal Highness, in person, on the 13th following. 







N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


153 


to occupy the first convenient moments of your 
Royal Highness’s gracious consideration. 

I beg leave to assure your Royal Highness, that 
my great impatience to exonerate my character 
from the odium of the (to me) disgraceful sen¬ 
tence and declaration of that general court mar¬ 
tial, arises in no trivial degree from a pure and 
ardent zeal for the interest of his Majesty’s 
service. 

I have the honor to be. 

With the most profound respect. 

Your Royal Highness’s 
Most obedient and most humble servant, 

NATH, JERYLL. 

Welbeck-street, December 18th, 1804. 




154 


THE VINDICATION OF 


From Lieutenant Colonel Gordon to N. Jekyll , Esq . 

SIR, Horse Guards, 19th Dec. 1804. 

I have received the Commander in Chief’s 
commands to acknowledge the receipt of your 
letter of yesterday’s date: and to acquaint you, 
that, full time having been given you to bring for¬ 
ward evidence before a general court martial, in 
support of the charges preferred by you against 

colonel Stewart, and which it appears by the sen- 

✓ 

tence of the court martial you failed in substantiat¬ 
ing, his Royal Highness therefore cannot, on any 

principle of justice, enter again into your accusa- 

* 

tion against colonel Stewart, nor recommend any 
alteration in the decision already given upon your 
case. 

\ 

I have the honor to be,- Sir, 

Your most obedient servant, 

J. W. GORDON, 





N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


155 


To his Royal Highness the Commander in Chief , 

Tc. Kc. 5s c. 

SIR, 

I have been honored with a letter from lieute¬ 
nant colonel Gordon, dated Horse Guards, Dec. 
JQth ult. acknowledging that which I had the ho¬ 
nor of presenting in person on the preceding day ; 
and acquainting me, that, as full time had been 
given me to bring forward evidence before a ge¬ 
neral court martial in support of the charges pre¬ 
ferred by me against colonel Stewart, and which 
it appeared by the sentence of a court martial 
I had failed in substantiating, your Royal High¬ 
ness, therefore, cannot enter again into my accu¬ 
sations against colonel Stewart, or recommend 
any alteration in the decision already given upon 
my case. 

I presume that I have already unquestionably 
demonstrated to your Royal Highness, that I am 
at length in possession of documents which, in my 

own justification, might fully prove every part of 

* 

pay first charge; likewise, that the defence op- 




156 


THE VINDICATION OF 


posed to it represented but a series of the most 
glaring inconsistencies and egregious inaccura¬ 
cies ; further, I have shewn that, so far from my 
second charge being without foundation (al • 
though, from the reasons stated, I was unable to 
proceed with it before the court martial), the most 
serious state of insubordination was excited in my 
late company by the very unbecoming treatment 
which I have represented myself to have experi¬ 
enced from colonel Stewart, relating to the duty 
of my late company ; moreover, I have strenuously 
affirmed to your Royal Highness, that my having 
advanced upon the prosecution without the whole 
of the testimony, which 1 have since informed 
your Royal Highness I could adduce in my own 
defence, proceeded purely from an ardent zeal for 
the interest of his Majesty’s service, at a seemingly 
critical juncture of a menaced invasion being about 
(or rather attempted) to be carried into execution; 
added to a full conception, that it would have been 
an unpardonable crime to have imagined that, in 
an event which I could not have expected—the 
failure of my charges, your Royal Highness, after 










N. JEKYLL, ES Q. 


15 7 


being informed of the state of my case, would 
abandon me to the total loss of a commission 
which I purchased near ten years since, and to 

the dreadful weight of an ignominious sentence of 

• , 

a court martial held on colonel Stewart—which, 
I trust, can no longer be deemed by your Royal 
Highness as duly attached to me, according to 
any established maxim of justice or principle of 
equity. 

But since those considerations are not admitted 
by your Royal Highness as sufficient grounds for 
affording me a military investigation, suffer me to 
trespass a little further upon your Royal High¬ 
ness’s patience, to relate several of the almost 
insurmountable obstacles which occurred to me in 
bringing forward my charges previous to the court 
martial; which I am most confidently persuaded 
could never have reached your Royal Highness’s 
knowledge; trusting they will serve to shew how 
little indulgence I actually did experience in bring¬ 
ing forward evidence in support of my accu¬ 
sations. 

But allow me, Sir, first to protest, that when I 






158 


THE VINDICATION OF 


felt myself impelled to represent my grievances to 
your Royal Highness, I was induced to perform 
that painful task solely from a conviction of its 
being an indispensable duty to develope a series 
of conduct which appeared to me as utterly in¬ 
tolerable ; not only from the dreadful sensations 
unceasingly produced upon my wearied and de¬ 
graded nerves, but also from the effect it but too 
evidently created in the company entrusted to my 
charge, to the serious prejudice of good order and 
military discipline ; and I most solemnly aver, 
that at this moment I bear no malice or spirit of 
resentment against colonel Stewart; likewise, that 
in imploring a further investigation (by a court 
martial upon myself) into the subject of the accu¬ 
sations alleged by me against colonel Stewart, I 
have no wish to proceed upon any points beyond 
what the most temperate and judicious opinions 
may think absolutely necessary to re-establish my 
fallen reputation . 

When I subscribed to my specific charges, the 
only alternative presented to me was the yielding 
to such degrading and base humiliations as must 











1 


' \ 

N. JEKYLL, ES$. 159 

irretrievably have immersed the unfortunate close 
of my military career in the darkest shades of ob¬ 
loquy, and have sunk my then despicable head so 
deeply in the estimation of its own mind, that I 
never could have presumed again to lift it up in 
presence of the lowest of his Majesty’s subjects 
possessing the least portion of honest repute ; and 
in vain was it that I strenuously urged to general 
Sir David Dundas, through the honorable major 
general Forbes, that my spirits at that period la¬ 
bored under a degree of agitation which wholly 

( 

incapacitated me for the very serious task of 
framing my complaints under specific heads for 
a court martial; and likewise, that I earnestly. 
prayed for an opportunity of consulting some ex¬ 
perienced military friend, or a counsel conversant 
in courts martial, to enable me to make out my 
charges properly. 

Still more extraordinary must it appear to your 

/ 

Royal Highness, as well as to that part of the 
world to whom my case may be known, that not¬ 
withstanding your Royal Highness was most gra¬ 
ciously pleased to accord me a week’s leave of ab- 






160 


THE VINDICATION OF 


sence in the month of March, three months pre¬ 
ceding the court martial on colonel Stewart, (in 
consequence of my humbly petitioning your Royal 
Highness, through major general Calvert, for ten 
days’ieave of absence, upon the plea of having 
declared my mind to have been so much agitated 
at the time of presenting my charges specifically 
to the honorable major general Forbes, e rr o e - 

cannfc : f extremely anxious to acquire the 

A 

opinion of the judge advocate general, and other 
able advice, respecting my charges transmitted 
through Sir David Dundas ;) when I addressed a ^ 
prayer to the adjutant general, during the period 
of that week’s leave, supplicating your Royal 
Highness’s permission to make such amendments 
in my charges as, by professional advice, I thought 
of great importance, I received a letter from 
colonel Wynyard, (the deputy adjutant general,) 
dated Horse Guards, March 28th, 1804, inti¬ 
mating that he was “ directed to inform me that 
the charges transmitted through general Sir David 
Dundas had been inserted in a special war¬ 
rant, for his Majesty’s signature,’’ and were 


i 








i 


N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 161 

" to go to trial by a general court martial.” But 
some time afterwards, upon my being prompted 
by a wish to accommodate an officer, whose name 
I had given in as one of my evidences, and who 
was desirous of obtaining a short leave of absence, 
to request an old and very respectable officer to 
inquire of the judge advocate general when the 
assembling of the court martial might have been 
expected, I received a letter, dated April 10th, 
mentioning his having made an application to the 
deputy judge advocate general, who informed 
him “ that the warrant was not then in a state for 
the royal signature, neither could he” (the deputy 
judge advocate) even “ say at what time it 
would.” 

It is true that four months did elapse from the 
time of presenting my specific charges to the ho¬ 
norable major general Forbes, in compliance with 
the commands of general Sir David Dundas, ere 
the sitting of the court martial held on colonel 
Stewart; and notwithstanding which, the most 
material of those evidences, whose names I had 
given in with my specific charges, were not sum** 

* M 


I 









162 


THE VINDICATION OF 


moned to attend the trial of colonel Stewart in 
sufficient time to afford me the very essential 
support which I have evinced that the testimony 
of Mr Salmond, (the late surgeon of the 43d 
regiment,) and that of lieutenant Delisle, (also 
late of the 43d regiment,) must have yielded me- 
This circumstance, I must confess, appeared not 
a little surprising, from the very particular man¬ 
ner in which I was positively ordered to give in 
the names of my evidences, together with my 
charges, in the month of February last; and also 
from my being informed, at the same time, by 

major general Forbes, that whether a court mar- 

( 

tial would have been permitted to examine into 
my complaints would most probably depend en¬ 
tirely on the convenience of assembling the wit¬ 
nesses whom I should require. Indeed, from the 
manner in which I was asked whether I intended 
inserting the name of Sir Hugh Dalrymple in the 
list of my evidences, I was impressed with a 
thorough belief that the signifying a wish to call 
upon the lieutenant general would have sufficed 
to produce the most serious consequences to my- 





N. jEKYLL, ESQ. 


163 


self, and secure colonel Stewart from any inquiry 
being instituted upon the highly improper and un¬ 
military conduct imputed by me to that officer. 

It waslbut a few days before the day for the 
# 

meeting of the court martial was announced, in 
the general orders of the southern district for the 
5th of June, that I learnt only one of the evi¬ 
dences whose names I had given in to Sir David 
Dundas had been summoned to attend the trial of 
colonel Stewart, who merely happened to have 
been detained at my particular request to the ad¬ 
jutant general. 

Yeti must acknowledge that colonel Campbell, 
the assistant adjutant general, did say to me, that 
if I insisted on postponing the trial until Mr. Sal- 
mond’s attendance could be obtained, the as¬ 
sembling of the court martial would have been 
accordingly deferred: but I was informed, at the 
same time, that such a step would occasion the 
most serious inconvenience to his Majesty’s ser¬ 
vice, for that a considerable delay must at all 
events have occurred ; and not only much trou¬ 
ble, but great uncertainty would attend the !h- 

m 2 









X 64 


THE VINDICATION OF 


quiry after that gentleman, whom it was con¬ 
jectured would most probably have been removed 
to some foreign station, from an appointment on 
the Irish staff, to which he was promoted from the 
43d regiment. Under those considerations, and 
with an implicit faith that your Royal Highness 
would not actually take ungenerous advantages of 

motives arising purely from a zeal for the welfare 

» 

of the state, I was induced to say >to colonel 
Campbell that I would dispense with the attend¬ 
ance of Mr. Salmond, if he could not be obtained 
by the time that would otherwise be convenient 
for assembling the court, as I had two other wit¬ 
nesses to establish the fact which I wished Mr. 
Salmond to prove. Mr. Havelock, the pay¬ 
master to the 43d regiment, positively affirmed to 
have heard colonel Stewart give me permission to 
apply to lieutenant general Gordon for a leave of 
absence, (which the colonel afterwards denied to 
Sir Hugh Dalrymple,) and deposed that Mr. Sal¬ 
mond was present with him, and also witnessed 
the same licence to have been given me: but 
very improvidently I was too fully persuaded by 
an officer, in whom I had implicit’ faith, that ma- 




N. jEKYLL, ESQ. 


165 


jor Cameron would have supported, most de¬ 
cidedly, the testimony of Mr. Havelock, upon 
the point of the leave. 

That surprising omission was, further, peculi¬ 
arly unfortunate, in causing the total loss of the 
essential testimony which I might have derived 
from lieutenant Delisle, the officer who proceed¬ 
ed with the detachment under my command to 

V. 

Jersey; for that officer left the regiment, which 
he afterwards joined, from the 43d regiment, 
about the time that the court martial was ordered, 
and could not be found to give his evidence. 

I have shewn to your Royal Highness that I 
now have documents from lieutenant Delisle, 
which at least must have so fully demonstrated the 
impressions which I invariably had of colonel 
Stewart’s conduct upon that occasion, as must 

have obviated the possibility of my being accused 

» 

of being instigated by malice or falsehood in pre- 

, 4 

ferring my charges against colonel Stewart, 
Emotions of extreme delicacy toward the mili¬ 
tary department of the executive government, and 
to an officer whose services (whatever sensations 

M 3 


4 




166 


THE VINDICATION OF 


might have been excited within my own mind by 
the harsh treatment of which I have spoken) 
command my humble veneration, would have re¬ 
strained these remarkable facts within my own 
wounded breast, had it not appeared to me of in¬ 
finite moment to the honour and welfare of his 
Majesty’s service, to the restoration of my own 
character, as well as to my private interest, to 
dispel the argument urged against me, by evincing 
to your Royal Highness, that either in forming 
my charges, or bringing forward evidence to sup¬ 
port them, so far from experiencing even what 
could but be regarded as very ordinary indul¬ 
gence, I have not met that aid and support abso¬ 
lutely necessary to promote and ensure the due 
administration of justice. 

I humbly trust that, when maturely weighed 
with several material circumstances before sub¬ 
mitted to your Royal Highness, the serious, and 
indeed almost insurmountable difficulties which 
1 have shewn that I actually did experience in 
bringing forward my complaints against colonel 
Stewart, cannot fail to induce your Royal High¬ 
ness to recommend to the most benevolent of 

M V i • * > , , v, , \ „ . i . . 










N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


167 


Sovereigns to permit me to justify my conduct (in 
having alleged charges against colonel Stewart 
without substantiating them) before a military 
tribunal. 

But should I not very shortly be honored by a 
satisfactory intimation from your Royal Highness, 
I most humbly hope that the circumstances men¬ 
tioned in my letter of the 18th of December ult. 
will amply plead my apology for presuming to 
publish such matters as may be requisite to exone¬ 
rate me, in the public estimation, from the into¬ 
lerably humiliating imputation of having falsely 
endeavoured to calumniate the character of colo¬ 
nel Stewart, highly injurious to the good of the 
service, by groundless and malicious accusations; 
likewise to cause the communication of my case, 
in its true perspective, to the most equitable of 
Sovereigns. I have the honor to be. 

With the most profound respect. 

Your Royal Highness’s 
most obedient and most humble servant, 

NATH. JEKYLL. 


1 ], Wt'lbeck-street, Jan. 1 , 180J. 





16$ 


THE VINDICATION OF 


— ---- - --- » . 

From Lieutenant Colonel Gordon to N. Jekyll , Esq. 

SIR, Horse Guards, Jan. 4, 1805. 

I am directed by the Commander in Chief to 
acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 1 st 
instant, and to acquaint you, that his Royal 
Highness having given the. fullest consideration 
to vour statement, sees no reason to recom- 
mend an alteration of the decision already made 
known to you. 

I have the honor to be. Sir, 

Your most obedient humble servant, 

J. W. GORDON. 


To Field Marshal His Royal Highness the Com¬ 
mander in Chief, &c. &c. &c. 

The memorial of Nathaniel Jekyll, Esquire, 
late captain of his Majesty’s forty-third 
(or Monmouthshire) regiment of foot, 
Sheweth, 


That the memorialist having preferred certain 
charges against colonel Stewart of his Majesty’s 
43d regiment, and having failed in an attempt to 




N. JEKYLL, ESQ.. 


169 

substantiate them before a general court martial 
commanded to examine into the same, his Ma¬ 
jesty has been pleased to dispense with his further 
services as captain in the said 43d regiment. The 
memorialist therefore humbly implores that your 
Royal Highness would be pleased to take into con¬ 
sideration his having purchased his late company 
in the month of May 1 7 95, and his having served 
upwards of ten years., zealously and faithfully, in 
the 43d regiment, without the slightest imputa¬ 
tion being attached to him, until the above-men¬ 
tioned most unfortunate event; also that the me¬ 
morialist has very forcibly evinced to your Royal 
Highness, by several letters and statements, the 
cause of his not having most fully proved the first 
and most weighty of the accusations alleged against 
colonel Stewart to have proceeded entirely from an 
excessive degree of solicitude for the individual 
interest of the 43d regiment, and from an extreme 
ardent zeal for the general interest of his Majesty’s 
service, at an awful and seeming critical juncture ; 
and that your Royal Highness would graciously 
be pleased to. supplicate his Majesty, under the 






17(3 


1 


THE VINDICATION OF 


, -- ■ " - 1 -- S •' 3-TC . 

several very peculiar circumstances above stated, to 
exercise his wonted benevolence so far as to per^ 
mit the sale of the memorialist’s late company for 
his benefit. 

And the memorialist shall ever pray, &c. 

NATH. JEKYLL, 


From Lieutenant Colonel Gordon to N. Jekyll , Esq. 

SIR, Horse Guards, 6th Feb. 1S05. 

I am directed by the Commander in Chief to 
acknowledge the receipt of your memorial of yes¬ 
terday’s date; and to acquaint you, that his 
Royal Highness regrets he has it not in his power 
to comply with your request. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your most obedient humble servant, 

J. W. GORDON. 


To His Royal Highness the Commander in Chief, Tc. 
SIK, 

Having, unfortunately in vain, repeatedly so¬ 
licited, under very peculiar and weighty consider- 






N. JEKYLL, ESQ_ 


171 


ations set forth in my several letters presented to 
your Royal Highness, and addressed to lieutenant- 
colonel Gordon, that your Royal Highness would 
implore the Sovereign, of his all-bounteous good¬ 
ness, graciously to permit me to evince, before a 
general court martial, that I have not preferred 
groundless and malicious accusations against colo¬ 
nel Stewart, of his Majesty’s 43d regiment, I 
have now most earnestly to entreat that your Royal 
Highness would allow me to prove, upon a mul¬ 
tiplicity of very respectable testimony, (to your 

i • 

Royal Highness,) through a court of enquiry, that 
I failed in an attempt to substantiate my specific 
complaints against colonel Stewart before a ge¬ 
neral court martial assembled at Hythe on the 
25th of June last, chiefly from having suffered an 
extreme warm zeal for the good of the service, at 
a critical moment when the government seemed 
wholly to expect an invading army upon our 
coasts, to induce me to enter upon the prosecu¬ 
tion without the most essential of the evidences 
whose names I had actually given in, with my 
charges, to general Sir David Dundas, and with- 
put other important testimony which most un- 







172 


THE VINDICATION OF 


■4 


(flubitably I should have required, under any other 
circumstances than those above mentioned ; and 
also from having improvidently relied, for the sup¬ 
port of the most serious of my charges, principally 
upon officers whose surprising defection of me¬ 
mory, on that occasion, excited very strong ex ¬ 
pressions of utter astonishment by the president and 
members of that court martial; trusting, in the 
most perfect confidence, that such matters will 
then be‘fully communicated as cannot but prompt 
your Royal Highness strenuously to second to his 
Majesty my prayer for a general court martial to 
be held upon my conduct in having exhibited 
complaints against colonel Stewart, which, in re¬ 
ality, were unjustly deemed groundless and ma¬ 
licious. 


I beg leave at the same time, merely from 
zealous motives toward his Majesty’s service, and 
the general welfare of the state, to present to your 
Royal Highness a little military compilation, (the 
manuscript of which, when on a much smaller 
scale, your Royal Highness was pleased to speak 
of in very flattering terms,) which perhaps might; 



brd some humble marks of the zeal 


with which 






X. jEKYLLj ESQ^ 


173 

I presume it might appear, upon mature enquiry, 
I have ever borne those commissions the most 
gracious of Monarchs has been pleased to confide 
in me in his 43d regiment. 

I have the honour to be, 

W ith sentiments of most dutiful respect. 

Your Royal Highness’s 
Most obedient and most humble servant, 

NATH. JEKYLL, 

li, Welbcck-Street, May 7 , 1805. 

To His Royal Highness the Commander in Chief j Sir, 
SI II, 

I beg leave most humbly to acquaint your 
Royal Highness that I am urged by considerations 
which appear to myself and to many judicious 

i 

persons, of very material importance to the state 
at this awful period, to pray that your Royal 
Highness would graciously condescend to de¬ 
vote the first convenient moments to the prayer 
contained in a letter which I had the honour of 
addressing to your Royal Highness on the 7th 
instant, imploring that I might be allowed to 










m 


THE VINDICATION OF 


exonerate my character from the dreadful impu¬ 
tation which I must presume to acknowledge I 
cannot but imagine to be not only wholly unduly 
attached to me, but at this day rather cruelly so, 
from the sentence of the court martial held on 
colonel Stewart, by proving to your Royal High-* 
ness, on a multiplicity of very respectable tes¬ 
timony, through a court of enquiry, that I failed in 
an attempt to substantiate my specific complaints 
against colonel Stewart, before a general court mar¬ 
tial, chiefly from having suffered an extreme warm 
zeal for the good of the service at a critical mo¬ 
ment, when the government seemed confidently 
to expect an invading army upon our coasts, to 
induce me to enter upon the prosecution without 
the most essential of the evidences, whose names 
I had given in with my charges to general Sir 
David Dundas ; and without other weighty testi¬ 
mony which most indubitably I should have 
required under any other circumstances than 
those before mentioned ; and also, from having 
improvidently relied for the support of the most 
serious of my charges principally upon officers 
whose surprising defection of memory, in that 








175 


\ 

✓ 

\ 

N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 

instance, produced very strong expressions of 
utter astonishment from the president and mem¬ 
bers of that court martial. 

Should not your Royal Highness very shortly 
deign to honor me with any intimation upon the 
subject of that humble supplication, I hope I shall 
not be deemed to exceed the bounds of the most 
possible dutiful respect to your Royal Highness 
in praying, through a member, whose patriotic 
spirit will not fail to display a warm interest in 
the honor of every part of his Majesty’s service, 
and for the due administration of impartial jus¬ 
tice to every individual of his Majesty’s dutiful 
and loyal subjects, that the parliament would 
deliberately hear my truly hard case ; and com¬ 
municate it, in its proper perspective, to the most 

beloved and most equitable of Monarchs. 

* 

I have the honor to be. 

With the most dutiful respect. 

Your Royal Highness’s most obedient 
And most humble servant, 

NATH. JEKYLL, 

11, Weibeck Street, May 14, 1805. 


i 





THE VINDICATION OF 


/ 


17 $ 


To Hu Royal Highness the Commander in Chief , &t\ 

SIR, 

I most humbly beg leave again to pray that 
your Royal Highness would be graciously pleased 
to suffer me,, with a view of obtaining a general 
court martial upon my conduct, to demonstrate to 
your Royal Highness, through a court of enquiry, 
that I have not preferred groundless and malici¬ 
ous accusations against colonel Stewart, of his 
Majesty’s 43d regiment. 

Should your Royal Highness feel indisposed 
towards my humble prayer, I presume, with the 
most respectful humility, to request that your 
Royal Highness would condescend to intimate to 
me, upon'what principle of equity or policy I am 
destined to labour under an unjust imputation of 
endeavoring falsely to calumniate the character 
of my late commanding officer, “ most highly 
injurious to the good of the serviceand am 
totally deprived of a commission which I pur¬ 
chased, without a fair and equitable trial. Surely 
your Royal Highness will not maintain that I have 
already experienced a full and impartial trial, by 


i 





N. JEKYLL, ES<^ 


177 


the court martial held on colonel Stewart; when 
I have made it appear so forcibly to your Royal 
Highness that my not having most fully substan¬ 
tiated my first charge, and proved that my second 
was actually far from being unfounded, proceeded 
from my not having had due support in forming 
my specific charges ; and from my having allowed 
an extreme ardent zeal for the good of his Majes¬ 
ty’s service, at a critical period, to have operated 
so far above all self interested consideration, as to 
have entered upon the prosecution of colonel 
Stewart without the most material of the evi¬ 
dences, whom I might have brought forward in 
my support; and after I have most strenuously 
protested to your Royal Highness, that the court 
peremptorily refused even to permit me to speak 
in my own justification* 

I have the honor to be. 

With dutiful respect, 

Your Royal Highness’s 
Most obedient and most humble servant, 

NATH. JEKYLL. 

n,Welbeck Street, May 21, 1805. 

> N 


* 








/ 


% 

178 THE VINDICATION OF 


To His Royal Highness the Commander in Chief, Sic. 

SIR, 

I presume again (my several of the 7th, 14th, 
and 21st of May ultimo, to the same effect, not 

jt 

having yet been honored with the reply which 
your Royal Highness was graciously pleased to 
assure me I should receive) most humbly to im- 

4 

plore that your Royal Highness would be pleased 
to permit me to evince to your Royal Highness, 
through a court of inquiry, that I have not 
actually alleged groundless and malicious accu¬ 
sations against colonel Stewart, of his Majesty’s 
43 d regiment, before the general court martial 
held on that officer. 

I have the honor to be, 

With dutiful respect, 

Your Royal Highness’s 
Most obedient and most humble servant, 

NATH. JEKYLL. 

Huntsmore Lodge, June i i, 1805. 





N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


179 


SIR, Horse Guards, 13th June, 1S05. 

In reply to your letter of the 11th instant, I am 
directed by the commander in chief to acquaint 
you, that your request having been already re- 
peatedly refused, his Royal Highness does not 
see any reason to alter the decision made known 
to yon, or to continue any farther correspondence 
on this subject. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your most obedient humble servant, 

J. W. GORDONS 

To N. Jekyll , Esq, 
ffuntsmore Lodge , near Uxbridge. 


To the Right Honorable Sir Charles Morgan, Bart . 
Judge Advocate General of His Majesty's Forces, 
S(c. Sic. Downing Street. 

Huntsmore Lodge., near Uxbridge, 
SIR, July 20, 1805. 

I have to request you would be pleased to 
suggest to me the proper channel, likewise if 
there be any prescribed form, of preferring a pro- 

N 2 







180 


THE VINDICATION OF 


test to the Sovereign against the proceedings of 

a general court martial, for the most grievous and 

« 

highly unjust partiality in their proceedings ; 
whereby the honour and interest of his Majesty’s 
service, as well as the chief aims of justice in the 
institution of trial, have been grossly violated. 

The case to which I allude, and upon which I 
presume to entreat your able opinion and advice, 
relates to the general court martial held on colo¬ 
nel Stewart, of his Majesty’s 43d regiment of foot, 
assembled at Sandgate on the 25th of June 1804, 
at which it was my unfortunate lot to appear as the 
prosecutor ; and the circumstances by which I 
feel myself most seriously aggrieved are, that the 
court have wholly suppressed, in their minutes, 
several very material parts of the depositions made 
by several evidences who were sworn by the court 
on the part of the prosecution ; and have ne¬ 
glected to notice, upon their proceedings, several 
• 

other matters essentially connected with the 
charges committed to their examination, which 
actually occurred before the court, and which I 
firmly believe could not have failed to have made 
very deep impressions on the gracious mind of the 






N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


181 


Monarch, had they been ingenuously recorded, 
as I humbly conceive that a due regard for the 
prevalence of impartial justice and humanity (to 
an officer who was repeatedly declared, by the 
president and other members of the court, to have 
been placed in the most aukward and painful situ¬ 
ation, such as no human foresight could have ex¬ 
pected, from a most extraordinary defection of 
memory in several officers summoned to support 
the prosecution) ought to have prompted ; by 
which omissions and surprising neglect his Ma¬ 
jesty has been egregiously misled with regard to 
my conduct in exhibiting specific charges against 
colonel Stewart before the said general court mar¬ 
tial ; and has been induced, through very wise 

f • * 

and laudable motives, to dispense with my farther 
services as a captain in his 43d (or Monmouth¬ 
shire) regiment of foot; and has (undeservedly) 
deprived me of every benefit of the said com¬ 
mission, which, with the royal concurrence, I 
purchased in the month of May in the year 1795, 
and which I trust an impartial and mature inquiry 
would prove that I have invariably borne with the 
most fervent loyalty, and with a very ardent zeal 


N 3 






182 


THE VINDICATION OF 


for the honor and interest of his Majesty’s ser¬ 
vice. 

In the first place, it appears to me material that 
some notice should have been made on the pro¬ 
ceedings that major Cameron, when called before 
the court to give evidence upon the first part of 
my first charge, affirmed, that his mind having 
been deeply engaged in discourse with other of¬ 
ficers, he had distinctly heard but a very small 
part of the conversation which passed between 
colonel Stewart and myself in his presence, on the 
evening of the 22d of February 1802, concerning 
my return from Jersey ; and that he retained so 
very imperfect a remembrance of any words he 
heard upon that occasion, that he felt himself in¬ 
capable of giving any decisive testimony. Se¬ 
condly, I cannot but consider it a matter of al¬ 
most infinite importance to have appeared upon 
the face of the proceedings, that paymaster Have¬ 
lock, having deposed to have been walking in 
company with Mr. Salmon, (the late surgeon of 
the 43d regiment,) in the yard of Amhurst Bar¬ 
racks, in the island of Guernsey, on the morning 
of the 23d of February 1802, and to have heard 





I 


N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


183 


colonel Stewart (addressing himself to me) say, 
very clearly and distinctly, “ As soon as you have 
established your party in Jersey you may return,’’ 
was asked by me if he remembered having had any 
particular conversation [I perceive, by the copy 
of the proceedings of the court martial which you. 
Sir, were pleased to favour me with, that the De¬ 
puty Judge Advocate has also very inaccurately 
stated this query, having written, “ do you re- 
“ member to have made any observation,” Scc.j 
with Mr. Salmon after I was put in arrest, (as it 
was given out, for returning without the sanction 
of colonel Stewart,) in which they both agreed 
that I had actually received the leave from colo¬ 
nel Stewart, and that Mr. Havelock replied most 
positively in the affirmative ; and added, that 
they both (evidently meaning in the conversation 
which happened subsequent to the arrest) con¬ 
ceived that I had had colonel Stewart’s leave, from 
the tenor of that part of the conversation which 
they heard. - Thirdly, the court have totally omit¬ 
ted so very material a circumstance essentially con¬ 
cerning my charges as that of my having signi¬ 
fied to the court, when it was obvious that I was 

N 4 








184 


THE VINDICATION OF 


quite unexpectedly obliged to close the prosecu¬ 
tion, that I reserved the mention of several very 
peculiar and weighty matters till the reply which I 
should make to the defence of colonel Stewart, 
the court not then giving me even the slightest 
intimation that any probable event could possibly 
preclude me from offering such remarks as I 
should think of moment for their special consi¬ 
deration, or prevent my stating any facts relative 
to my charges which were not then to have been 
substantiated by witnesses, in the course of my 
comments on the defence ; and that upon the plea 
of colonel Stewart’s not having adduced any evi- 
dence in his defence, to my utter amazement I 
was peremptorily refused permission to speak upon 
several facts which I then, and before, repre¬ 
sented as of considerable consequence. Neither 
have the court made any kind of mention, in their 
proceedings, of the most extraordinary defalcation 
of memory in those officers who were on Sir Hew 
Dalrymple’s staff in the island of Guernsey, who 
were called upon to substantiate the second part 
of my first charge, although the president and 
other members frequently declared aloud that their 




N. JEKYLL, ESQ,. 


185 


want of recollection far indeed exceeded what they 
had ever before met with or heard of, and that it 
was utterly impossible for me to have been aware 
of it. Moreover the president repeatedly protest¬ 
ed, in the most strong and impressive manner, to 
lieutenant-colonel Leighton and to major Barclay, 
that I was entirely lost—meaning, I presume, that 
my first charge had failed through their want of. 
memory. 

If the court had not so absolutely refused me 
permission to mention some essential circum¬ 
stances which at the close of the prosecution they 
left me so confidently to expect would be received, 
after the defence, with my reply, I should, in the 
first step, have clearly accounted for the imperfect 
notion major Cameron had on my leave from co¬ 
lonel Stewart being coupled with a relief, by de¬ 
tailing a fact well known to several officers of the 
43d regiment, which I imagine must have appear¬ 
ed in no small degree confirmed by a copy of the 
regimental orders of the 22d and 23d of February 
1802, laid before the court at the opening of the 
proceedings. When colonel Stewart directed me 
to take charge of the recruiting party ordered to 





IS6 'I LIE VINDICATION OF 

r » ♦ 

Jersey, the colonel said he should not order a sub¬ 
altern with me, but would send one in two or three 
days afterwards, to join the detachment. I still 
think it most probable that several of my late 
brother officers might also call to mind that at the 
same time the colonel, in plain and unequivocal 
language, said to me, that as soon as my subaltern 
should arrive I might request general Gordon’s 
leave of absence, mentioning my having had his 
sanction to the application, on account of Mrs. 
Jekyll’s being then extremely ill in Guernsey, and 
having been ordered by her physician to England 
as soon as she could possibly bear the removal. 
The detachment not having sailed on the evening 
of the 22 d, as was expected when ordered by the 
colonel to embark, owing to some unlooked-for 
incident having detained the packet, at my re¬ 
quest the subaltern was on the next day ordered to 
accompany the party, I concluded for the sole 
purpose of enabling me to obtain a leave of ab¬ 
sence from lieutenant-general Gordon. And if 
what I have before asserted to have been stated to 
the court by major Cameron, of his having heard 
but a few very small, unconnected parts of the 











N. JEKYLLj ESQ. 


187 


conversation respecting my leave to return from 
Jersey, and his having retained scarcely any recol¬ 
lection of what he did hear, had been shewn upon 
the minutes of the court, major Cameron’s ideas 
upon that occasion having been so excessively con¬ 
fused and inconsistent, that he deposed to have 
believed, from what he heard between colonel 
Stewart and myself, that I had no permission to 
quit Jersey till another officer should relieve me; 
and again affirmed, on the contrary, almost at the 
same moment, that he did not recollect to have 
understood that my being relieved was the only 
condition upon which I was to have returned from 
Jersey ; it is to be presumed that at least extreme¬ 
ly strong doubts must have occurred to his Ma¬ 
jesty—such as could only have been removed by 
farther inquiry upon that part of major Cameron’s 
evidence, which perhaps, upon a mere superficial 
view, might have yielded an unfavourable com¬ 
plexion to my charge, especially as colonel Stew¬ 
art could not attempt to prove, or even offer any 
explanation of plausible reason for his not having 
it in his power to have sent another captain with 
the recruiting party, when humanity dictated to 








188 


THE VINDICATION OF 


him “ the propriety of doing what was in” his 
ie power to alleviate the sufferings of” myself, on 
account of u Mrs. Jekyll’s being confined by a 
“ dangerous illness,” instead of ordering me to 
Jersey with a positive and avowed determination 
of sending another captain to relieve me within a 
very few days afterwards. 

And then had the reply of Mr. Havelock (to my 
question whether he had any particular conversa¬ 
tion with Mr. Salmon after my being put in arrest, 
in which they both agreed that I had had colonel 
Stewart’s leave) been ingenuously stated upon the 
proceedings, it must instantly have struck his 
Majesty that if Mr. Salmon had been present I 
should have had two very respectable witnesses, 
who would have so forcibly supported my assertion 
of having had colonel Stewart’s sanction to obtain 
a leave of absence, which it appeared to the court 
(by col. Stewart’s own statement) he afterwards 
denied to Sir Hew Dalrymple, as to have proved, 
in one instance, the colonel’s giving me that li¬ 
cence in such an indubitable shape, that not even 
the event of my being put in arrest, and suffering 
other degrading humiliations, for the supposed of- 





N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


189 


■ :-- - — ~ . - - - - : - - 

fence of quitting my recruiting party without colo¬ 
nel Stewart’s approbation, producing the slightest 

shadow of doubt in their minds of my having re- 

* ■ * 

ceived his most entire concurrence to return from 
Jersey, as I did. The testimony of Mr. Have¬ 
lock and of major Cameron, on the face of the 

proceedings, likewise affords strong presumptive 

« 

grounds for belief that Mr. Salmon would have 
proved the same leave to have been given by colo¬ 
nel Stewart at two distinct periods—on the eve¬ 
ning of the 22d, and on the morning of the 23d 
of February. I have infinitely too high respect 
both for the ostensible personage and the office 
of the judge advocate general of his Majesty’s 
forces to suppose that if you. Sir, could only have 
surmised that it might have been of any advan- 

9 

tage to me to have explained the cause of Mr. 
Salmon’s not appearing as a witness on the part of 
the prosecution, you would for a moment have 
hesitated upon candidly representing to the Sove¬ 
reign that it was attributable to a surprising negli¬ 
gence either in the office of the adjutant-general 
or in your own department, in not ordering the 
attendance of those officers, whose names I had 






/ 


/ 


190 THE VINDICATION OF 

given in with my charges, in due time; added to 

t 

a zealous regard for the good of his Majesty’s 
service having evidently created in me a wish not 
to inconvenience it by protracting the trial of co¬ 
lonel Stewart longer than I thought I could pos¬ 
sibly avoid. 

I will not attempt to trespass so far upon your 
indulgent patience as to state my sentiments at 
length upon the inconsistencies and improbabili¬ 
ties which appear in the evidence of lieutenant- 
colonel Leighton and major Barclay, as colonel 
Stewart, in the defence recorded upon the pro¬ 
ceedings of his court martial, has confirmed the 
second part of my first charge in the fullest pos¬ 
sible degree, and has unquestionably refuted the 
inaccurate ideas which those officers had, at the 
trial, of mutual concessions or any explanation 
having been made, between colonel Stewart and 
myself, before Sir Hew Dalrymple. Indeed the 
astonishingly illiberal and highly unbecoming con¬ 
duct which Sir Hew Dalrymple must appear to 
have committed towards me, in that case, must 
alone, I trust, convince his Majesty of the total 
improbability of such an occurrence. But still it 








N. JEKYLL, ESQ^ 


19 r 


seems to me so material that the amazing- de- 

O 

fection of memory in those officers should have 
been noticed on the proceedings of the general 
court martial, that it may reasonably be supposed, 
if his Majesty had not been thoroughly satisfied 
with the acknowledgements and assertions of co¬ 
lonel Stewart, his most gracious mind would have 
felt an earnest wish to be informed by Sir Hew 
Dalrymple upon those points of the second part 
of my first charge which had so escaped the me¬ 
mory of the officers who had been on his staff at , 
the time they are stated to have taken place. 

I particularly entreat you would be pleased to 
favour me with your opinion whether there does 
not clearly appear a flagrant breach of the solemn 
oath imposed by the Articles of War on every in¬ 
dividual member of that and every other general 
court martial, in passing an unanimous declara¬ 
tion on the conduct of the prosecutor or upon the 
prisoner, the more especially as it is not to be ima¬ 
gined but that the court actually supposed the said 
declaration would have been fatal to every prospect 
in my then profession. Every member solemnly 
swore that he would “ not, upon any account, at 








192 


THE VINDICATION OF 


“ any time whatever, disclose the vote or opinion 
“ of any particular member of the court martial, 
u unless required to give evidence thereof, as a 
“ witness, by a court of justice, in a due course 
“ of law.” 

I must confess that I feel not a little disposed 
to appeal to a civil court of justice, in the event of 
your opinion coinciding with my very humble sen¬ 
timents upon these very serious transactions, in 
case of my not being able to obtain an opportunity 
of vindicating my much-injured character before 
a military tribunal. This inclination is greatly 
encouraged by the remarkable fact of my having 
been well informed that many officers who at¬ 
tended the trial of colonel Stewart, and who were 
wholly unprejudiced from having, any previous 
knowledge of or acquaintance with either party, 

publicly declared that they could not entertain the 

» » 

least doubt upon the truth and justice of my first 
charge, from what they heard in evidence before 
the court. 

I cannot believe that there is a person in the 
whole British empire whose heart would not be 
agitated by the strongest emotions of honest in- 





N. JEKYLL, ESQ^ 


193 


dignat ion at any insinuation that the most bene¬ 
volent and most equitable of Monarchs could have 
been prevailed on to have deprived an officer, who 
had served upwards of ten years faithfully and zeal¬ 
ously without the feintest shade of imputation to 

his character, totally of a commission which he 

« 

had been permitted to purchase, and have de¬ 
stined him to labour under the dreadful and most 
odious stigma of having preferred groundless and 
malicious accusations against another officer, with¬ 
out permitting him to vindicate himself before 
another general court martial appointed to exa¬ 
mine into his conduct in urging charges which he 
had failed in an attempt to substantiate, had it 
been made to appear, that so far from his having 
been fully and impartially evidenced to his Ma¬ 
jesty, he had been peremptorily refused permis¬ 
sion even to speak before the court martial in his 
justification ; and whilst there existed very strong 
grounds for conjecture that his not having pro¬ 
duced such other evidence as it was but reason¬ 
able to suppose must have established at least 
the most serious of his specific charges, resulted 

o 




194 


THE VINDICATION 0E 


from a most fervent zeal for the good of the ser¬ 
vice at an awful period of political affairs. 

Under that conviction I have to request you 
would be pleased to honour me with your opinion 
whether the before-mentioned circumstances might 
not be considered as very sufficient grounds for 
presuming to address the Sovereign in humble 
petition to be further heard in my defence relative 
to the specific charges exhibited by me against 
colonel Stewart of his Majesty’s 43d regiment, 
upon the plea of my case not having been fully 
and impartially evidenced to his Majesty on the 
proceedings of the general court martial held on 
the said colonel Richard Stewart, at Sandgate, in 
the month of June 1804 ; and also that you would 
be pleased to make known to me the proper 
channel of protesting to the throne upon a mani¬ 
fest injustice in the proceedings of a general court 
martial. 

Perhaps it may be necessary that I should ac¬ 
quaint you with the cause of my not having thus 
addressed myself to you long ere this, being the 
effect of a mistaken confidence that the Com- 






N. JEKYLL, ESQ^ 


195 


mander in Chief could not have been so insensible 
to the claims of justice as to have refused for¬ 
warding my prayer to his Majesty, petitioning for 
an opportunity of vindicating my unjustly-wound¬ 
ed character before a general court martial, or at 
least to have granted me a court of inquiry, upon 
my making it appear to his Royal Highness my 
not having proved that my charges were neither 
groundless nor malicious arose from my having 
been placed under almost insuperable difficulties 
in forming as well as in prosecuting them, in¬ 
stead of experiencing the aid and support which 
appear to me necessary to promote and ensure the 
due administration of justice ; from my having al¬ 
lowed a (perhaps false) sense of honour to my 
late regiment, under peculiar circumstances, to 
have prevented my examining any officers be¬ 
longing to the 43d regiment, upon the testimony 
which I too confidently expected from those whom 
I called forward as witnesses ; and from an ar¬ 
dent zeal for his Majesty’s service having so far 
operated with me above every self-consideration 
as to have occasioned my venturing upon the 
prosecution without several of the most material 





196 


THE VINDICATION OF 


evidences whom I might have had in support of 
my charges. 

Since even these considerations are not, in the 
eyes of his Royal Highness, sufficient reasons for 
granting what, until lately, has long been sup¬ 
posed an almost unquestionable privilege of every 
officer—-an opportunity of justifying his character 

i 

to the Sovereign and to the world, in having exhi¬ 
bited specific charges before a general court mar- 

4 

tial, in which, from the occurrence of unforeseen 
circumstances, he had failed—it must be very ob¬ 
vious of what immense importance it is to every 
individual of the army, and to the whole com¬ 
munity, that the evidence, and every part of the 
proceedings essentially relating to the charges 
submitted to their investigation,, should be faith¬ 
fully recorded upon their minutes, for the. inform¬ 
ation of his Majesty. 

I cannot refrain from acknowledging that from 
what I have actually experienced, it appears to me 
the Commander in Chief has laid down such de¬ 
spotic maxims in his weak and arbitrary system as 
seriously menace the total ruin of every officer 
resisting, by appealing to him for redress, the 








N. JEKYLL, ESQ^. 197 

most flagrant and pernicious oppression by a com¬ 
manding officer ; and consequently must render a 
commission in the British army no longer a tenure 
to be desired by the lowest of his Majesty’s sub¬ 
jects, having the least degree of manly and ho¬ 
norable spirit; and that, with the most profound 
sentiments of loyalty and dutiful respect towards a 
prince of the realm, I feel it an indispensable duty 
to the honor and interest of his Majesty’s service, 
as well as in justice to myself, earnestly and vi¬ 
gorously to pursue every advantage which, in my 
case, the civil and military laws of the empire 
may afford me. At the same time I have no 
other view than the causing my present cruelly 
hard situation to be made kndwn to the most ex¬ 
cellent of earthly Monarchs in its true perspective, 
under the most implicit confidence that that alone 
would ensure me an instance of that impartial 
justice which has so gloriously signalized every 
act of his reign. 

I have the honor to be, 

Sir, 

Your most obedient and most humble servant, 

NATH. JEKYL. 











198 


THE VINDICATION OF* 


SIR, Downing Street, 23 d July, 1805 . 

I have not had an opportunity until now of 
reading your letter (it being ot considerable 
length) with the attention I could wish. Not 
knowing any precedent of such a protest as you 
have in contemplation, and consequently unac¬ 
quainted with any mode or form in which it may 
be adviseable to apply, I can only recommend 
your advising with some officer of experience in 
the service with regard to any application in the 
military line ; and with regard to any other mode 
for seeking redress, you will naturally have recourse 
to the opinion of some eminent practitioner in the 
law department. If I felt myself competent to 
point out any adviseable mode, I should readily 
have done it in compliance with your request. I 
will ingenuously avow to you, that I am apprehen¬ 
sive you will find it difficult to overcome the 
presumption that the court martial, and the per- 
son officiating asjpdge advocate also, have not all 
conspired to injure you, and the unanimity of the 
ynemberS] the declaring of which you consider to 






N. JF.KYLL, ESQ^ 


199 


have been irregular , tends however to strengthen 
ihe presumption in their favor. 

I return herewith your letter, as it may be 
possibly useful to you in stating your case for the 
opinion of those whom you may think proper 
to consult. 

I am, Sir, 

Your most obedient. 

And most humble servant, 

, CHARLES MORGAN. 

To N. Jekyll , Esq . 


To the Right Honorable the Secretary at War, Ec. 

Me. War Office . 

Huntsmore Lodge, near Uxbridge, 
SIR, July 30, 1805. 

I have to request you would be pleased atten¬ 
tively to peruse the inclosed memorial, and lay 
the same before the most gracious Sovereign. 

If there are any points therein specified which 
you might wish to have more fully explained, or to 

o 4 




200 


THE VINDICATION OF 


have certified by actual document, I will most 
cheerfully wait on you, Sir, at any time you may 
please to appoint, to communicate such particular- 
information as-you might desire. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your most obedient 

And most humble servant, 

NATH. JEKYLL. 


To the Right Honorable His Majesty’s Secretary 

at War, &c. &c. 

The memorial of Nathaniel Jekyll, Esquire, 
late captain of His Majesty’s forty third 
(or Monmouthshire) regiment of foot, 
Sheweth, 

That the memorialist having considered himself 
to have suffered a series of highly oppressive and 
unmilitary conduct from colonel Richard Stewart, 
as commanding officer of the said 43d regiment, 
he felt himself indispensably bound in duty to his 






N. JEKYLL, ESC^ 


201 


Majesty’s service, after having in vain made the 
greatest exertions to convince colonel Stewart of 
the memorialist’s bearing the most fervent zeal, 
and that his (colonel Stewart’s) most unhandsome 
treatment in every instance, was entirely unde¬ 
served, to communicate a general outline of his 
grievances to the honorable major-general Forbes, 
commanding at Ashford in the month of February 
1 S 04 , for the information of the commander in 
chief of his Majesty’s forces : 

i 

That, instead of any deliberate examination 
having been made, or caused to have been made, 
by his Royal Highness into the complaints of the 
memorialist, according to the first article of the 
twelfth section of the Articles of War, an intima¬ 
tion was conveyed to the memorialist by the honor¬ 
able major-general Forbes, and assistant adjutant 
general colonel Campbell, that, even in the very 
serious misconduct imputed to him in the state¬ 
ment of the memorialist, submitted to the com¬ 
mander in chief, colonel Stewart had not suffered 
in the esteem and confidence of his Royal High¬ 
ness, although he was therein accused of wittingly 







202 


THE VINDICATION OF 


making a false report to lieutenant-general Sir 
Hew Dalrymple in the month of March 1802, in 
the island of Guernsey, purporting that, he (colo¬ 
nel Stewart) had not granted the memorialist 
any permission to be absent from his recruiting 
party then stationed in the island of Jersey, not¬ 
withstanding he well knew that he had given that 
licence to the memorialist on the 22d of the 
antecedent month, thereby having caused the 
memorialist to have been put under an arrest, and 
to have suffered undeservedly the most severe and 
painful reprimand, and humiliating animadver¬ 
sions ; and of unwarrantably treating the memo¬ 
rialist, in his official capacity as a captain in his 
Majesty’s 43d regiment, with such extreme dis¬ 
respect in the eyes of the soldiers committed to 
his charge ; that very great insubordination conse¬ 
quently for a long while prevailed in his late com¬ 
pany ; even so great, that the memorialist was 
totally unable to enforce obedience in the said 
company to those orders which appeared to him 
as absolutely necessary for the maintenance of 
good order and military discipline ; and the me r 




N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


203 


morialist was required by the honorable major- 
general Forbes to submit to humiliations most 
disgraceful to the character of an officer and a 
gentleman, and extremely derogatory to the honor 
of his Majesty’s service, in making such an abject 
apology to colonel Stewart, in presence of the 
honorable major-general Forbes, and all the 
officers then with the 43d regiment, as should 
contain a complete retraction of his accusations 
against colonel Stewart, with an acknowledgment 
of their impropriety and injustice, as well as a wish 
to obtain colonel Stewart's pardon for having made 
them : 

That the memorialist having with great humi¬ 
dity resisted the most base and insulting con¬ 
cessions, he was peremptorily commanded instantly 
to deliver to the honorable major-general Forbes, 
specific charges without comment, together with 
the names of those evidences whom he intended 
calling in their support: 

That the memorialist, when required to give in 
his charges specifically, most strongly protested 
f;o the honorable major-general Forbes, that his 





204 


THE VINDICATION OF 


mind at that time laboured under an excessive 
degree of agitation, from the subject of his com¬ 
plaints, which rendered him wholly incompetent 
to the very important and most difficult task of 
forming his grievances under specific heads, for 
trial by a general court martial; and most ear¬ 
nestly implored a short leave of absence, for the 
purpose of consulting experienced military friends, 
and acquiring the opinion of some eminent coun¬ 
sel in framing his charges previous to their being 
ultimately given in; but that his several petitions 
to that effect, made to general Sir David Dundas, 
(then commanding the southern district,) were 
each unsuccessful: 

That, on the 1st of March 1804, the day after 
his finally subscribing to the charges which were 
committed to trial, the memorialist addressed a 

i . 

letter to colonel Clinton, (then secretary to the 
commander in chief,) stating his having signed 
specific charges against colonel Stewart on the 
preceding day, expressing his great disappoint¬ 
ment at not having been required to explain, in 
detail, the circumstances upon which he had 






N. J EKYLLj ESQ. 


205 


presumed to build his several charges against 
colonel Stewart; likewise at his not having been 
permitted to consult some experienced friends, 
and to procure the aid of counsel prior to being 
obliged to deliver in his specific charges; and 
also imparting, that further consideration had 
caused an anxious wish that the commander in 
chief would allow him to withdraw those charges, 
at least until he could clearly and concisely repre¬ 
sent to him such material facts as he deemed 
necessary to afford his Royal Highness a perfect 
idea of his then most painful situation with colonel 
Stewart: 

That his letter to colonel Clinton not having 
been honored with an answer, the memorialist 
conceived that the commander in chief was indis¬ 
posed to allow him to withdraw the charges for¬ 
warded by general Sir David Dundas ; and con¬ 
sequently wrote to the adjutant-general, major- 
general Calvert, on the 16 th of March following, 
requesting from the commander in chief ten days 
leave of absence, for the purpose of soliciting 
the opinion of the judge-advocate general, and 




THE VINDICATION OF 


206 

other able advice, concerning his charges against 
colonel Stewart, upon the plea of having stated to 
general Sir David Dundas, through the honorable 
major-general Forbes, when urged for his specific 
charges, that his spirits were so exceedingly de¬ 
pressed and agitated by the galling treatment daily 
encountered in the face of his regiment, bringing 
most forcibly to mind the many instances of 
extreme mortification he had borne from colonel 
Stewart, that he was very desirous to obtain the 
advice of some judicious military friends, and of 
counsel conversant in courts martial, to enable 
him to make out his specific charges properly, and 
to arrange the several matters requisite to substan- 
tiate them : 

That the honorable major-general Forbes com¬ 
municated to the memorialist on the 21st of the 
same month, (March 1804,) his Royal High¬ 
ness’s having been pleased to grant him one 

week’s leave of absence, which was ordered to 

» 

commence from that day, in consequence of the 

% 

application to the adjutant-general on the l6th 
of March: 






N. JEKYLL, ESQ. 


207 


That the memorialist having embraced the first 
opportunity of submitting his case to an eminent 
counsellor, by whom some important amendments 
were suggested to his charges; the memorialist 
presented them to the adjutant-general in an im¬ 
proved shape on the 26th of March 1804, with 
a request that the commander in chief would 
suffer them to be so entered in the special warrant 
for the trial of colonel Stewart; and on the same 
day colonel Wynyard, the deputy adjutant- 
general, acknowledged the memorialist’s “ letter, 
inclosing a paper containing amended charges 
against colonel Stewart, of the 43d regiment 
and at the same time intimated that he was directed 
to inform the memorialist that, the charges 
transmitted, through general Sir David Dundas, 
had been inserted in a special warrant for his 
Majesty’s signature,’’ and were to go to trial by 
a general court martial : The memorialist, from 
the solicitude which he can never cease to feel 
for the honor and welfare of the army, laments 
most deeply that it should appear incumbent on 
him ingenuously to confess to the right honorable 




1 


203 THE VINDICATION OF 

the secretary at war, that, from authentic intelli¬ 
gence which he afterwards received, conjoined 
with inferences naturally arising from the before- 
mentioned and other scarcely less surprising cir¬ 
cumstances, the declaration that the charges 
which went to trial having been inserted in a 
special warrant for the royal signature on or 
before the 26 th of March 1804, seems to have 
been both a grievous and palpable mis-statement of 
known fact, uttered with a wicked intent of pro¬ 
tecting falsehood and oppression from a full and 
impartial investigation *: 

That on the 27 th of May the honorable major- 
general Forbes notified to the memorialist that a 
general court martial was appointed in general 
orders, dated Canterbury, May 25th, 1804, to 
assemble at Hythe Barracks on Tuesday, the 5th 
of June 1804, at eleven o’clock A.M. in conse¬ 
quence of his Majesty’s warrant having been 

e * 

* The special warrant, according to the date therein spe¬ 
cified, was not signed by his Majesty until the 18th of May 
following, seven weeks subsequent to the receipt of the deputy 
adjutant - gencral’s letter. 




N. JEKXLL, ES<^ 


209 


received by, general Sir David Dund^s, constituting 
major-general Moore president of a general court 
martial for the ; trial of colonel Stewart, of the 43d 

4 t ' J 

regiment, on charges therein specified; and on 
the 31st of May the memorialist received a letter 
from captain jMunro, of ; the royal artillery, (the 
deputy judge-advocate at- the trial : of/, colonel 
Stewart,)/acquainting him .that lieutenant Ross,. 

* V . r 

of the royal engineer^ ;<ki$d been summoned as an 
evidence for the prosecution. That officer’s.name 
having bepu given in, among several others, in 
compliance with the orders of general/Sir David 
Pandas in , the month pf March, and no other 

being specified in the, deputy judge-advocate’s 

. 

letter, the memorialist conjectured that; his.pther 
witnesses had not hreen ordered to attend- the trial 
of colonel Stewart, and immediately proceeded to 
Ramsgate, the .then station, pf captain Munro, 
where he learnt thgt his ^irmise was unfortunately 


too : trqe : id.loy (i&zoxQ orii ifidT 

Cj 

That m consequppce offia l^epre^pntation made 
to him by assistant adjutanf-^eneral colonel Camp¬ 
bell, that, his Majesty’s service would .puffer yery 






210 


THE VINDICATION OF 


great inconvenierice by a procrastination of the 
trial of colonel Stewart, until the most probable 
period that the attendance of one or two officers 
on whom the memorialist had chiefly depended 
for the proof of the first and most serious of his 
charges could be obtained ; the memorialist most 
improvidently ventured upon the prosecution of 
colonel Stewart without several very important 
evidences, under an implicit reliance that the 
commander in chief would not really take the most 
ungenerous advantages of laudable motive which 
the memorialist cannot but consider himself to 
have encountered in the event of his not substan- 

. r f ♦ i f i / 1 *' r 

tiating his charges, 4j when the principle cause of 

i f N ^ t 

his not having established at least the first and 
most weighty of them should have been clearly 
demonstrated to his Royal Highness, to have 
arisen entirely from an extreme fervent zeal for 
the service at an awful juncture : 

That the excessive ardour of his zeal having so 
thoroughly predominated over every impulse of 
self-consideration, as to have impelled the memo¬ 
rialist upon the very critical task of prosecuting 







N. JEKYLL, ESQi 


211 


a commanding officer without several of the most 
essential of the witnesses whom he might have 
required; the memorialist was consequently un¬ 
able to satisfy the general court martial, held on 
colonel Stewart, of the justice of his first charge : 

That the memorialist having been greatly dis¬ 
couraged in his second charge by the opinion of 
his counsel and other judicious persons, that, 
under the extreme agitation of mind in which he 
had been obliged to give in his final charges, 
without necessary assistance in forming them, he 
had expressed it in terms too general to have been 
fully supported by the specific instances upon 
which it had been constructed, the memorialist 
finding several of his witnesses for that charge 
also fall very short on a re-examination of what 
they had led him to expect on the trial, he re¬ 
presented to the said general court martial, that 
his evidences to the second charge not then sup¬ 
porting the testimony which they had first given 
him, he would not detain the court to hear evi¬ 
dence he did not think sufficiently decisive : 

That the memorialist not having before learnt, 





212 


THE VINDICATION OF 


in the course of above ten years’ military experi¬ 
ence^ or having been apprised by either the court, 
or the officiating judge advocate, that a general 
court martial could reject (as they absolutely did 
refuse his) the prayer of a prosecutor, to offer to 
their particular consideration such comments as 
he might judge to be of moment, and to recite such 
circumstances as he might think of importance im¬ 
mediately connected with the charges before the 
court in the course of the repty to the defence, not¬ 
withstanding the accused party should find himself 
unable even to attempt to refute by witnesses the ac¬ 
cusations alleged to him : although the memorialist 
stated to the court at the close of the prosecution 
that he reserved the mention of several extraordi¬ 
nary and very cogent matters for the reply, which, 
of course, he intended to make to colonel Stewart’s 
defence, the court, although it was most per¬ 
fectly obvious that the memorialist was quite 
unexpectedly obliged to stop in the prosecution of 
his first and most serious charge, through a 
defection of memory in several officers, which the 
president and several members repeatedly affirmed 
aloud to have very far surpassed what they had 






213 


N. JEfcYLL, £SQ_ 

ever before witnessed or heard of, and to have 
infinitely exceeded what was to have been imagi¬ 
ned possible, after the defence, refused the me¬ 
morialist permission to account for his not having 
produced such an abundance of testimony as, from 
what appeared in evidence to the court, might 
very reasonably have been expected to have con¬ 
firmed his first charge beyond the reach of uncer¬ 
tainty, and to have explained the several causes 
of his not proceeding upon his second charge, 
and likewise to have stated to the court that it 
was founded upon such facts as might readily have 
been expected to have naturally occasioned the 
sensations in the mind of the memorialist therein 
specified: 

That the court martial, not having faithfully re¬ 
corded the evidence for the prosecution, and hav- 
ing neglected to notice candidly, on their mi¬ 
nutes, very material parts of their proceedings, 
but, even under those very peculiar circumstances, 
having unanimously declared that the memorialist 
had endeavoured falsely to calumniate the charac¬ 
ter of a commanding officer, whose conduct the 

P 3 







214 * 


THE VINDICATION OF 


court decreed to have been irreproachable during 
a long period of service, the great ends of justice, 
in the solemn and awful forms of impartial trial, 
have been so totally defeated, that very unmilitary 
and oppressive conduct, with the despicable vice 
of falsehood wittingly asserted by an officer in the 
elevated station of a lieutenant-colonel, (now co¬ 
lonel,) commanding a British regiment of the 
line, against an inferior officer under his com¬ 
mand, have hitherto escaped wholly unpunished 
in colonel Stewart; and the most benevolent Sove¬ 
reign has been so grossly deceived in the conduct 
of the memorialist relative to those charges, that 
his Majesty has (undeservedly) dismissed him 
from the service, depriving him entirely of the 
regulated sum whigh he actually paid (with the 
royal sanction) for his late company, in the month 
of May in the year 1 7 Qo, and has very unjustly 
destined the memorialist to bear the most odious 
stigma of having exhibited groundless and mali¬ 
cious accusations, before a general court martial, 

- * i 

against his late commanding officer, although the 
memorialist cannot but feci perfectly confident 


\ 


I 


I 







N. JEKYLL, Esa. 


215 


that a mature examination into the whole tenor 
of his military conduct, both as an officer and a 
gentleman, would evince indisputable proofs of 
his having invariably borne those commissions 
entrusted to him in the 43d (or Monmouthshire) 
regiment of foot with the most possible fervent 
zeal for the honour and welfare of the army, and 
also for the interest of the community at large : 

That the memorialist has repeatedly, with great 
humility, strenuously implored the Commander in 
Chief to pray that his Majesty, under the several 
very peculiar and weighty considerations herein 
set forth, would be pleased graciously to permit 
the memorialist to justify his cruelly and deeply- 
injured character before a general court martial, 
in having exhibited certain charges against colonel 
Richard Stewart, of his 43d (or Monmouthshire) 
regiment of foot, which have been unduly declared 
to have been groundless and malicious by a general 
court martial assembled at Sandgate on the 25th 
of June 1 8G4, to examine into the same : 

That his several petitions for a general court 
martial on his own conduct having proved inef- 


* 


/ 





2\6 


THE VINDICATION OF 


fectual, the memorialist has also supplicated the 
Commander in Chief to allow him to convince his 

* r 

Royal Highness, through a court of inquiry, 

with a view to obtain a general court martial, that 

in his own defence he could most fully prove every 

part of his first charge ; likewise that the whole 

, ^ 

of what colonel Stewart advanced in contradiction 
to the charges therein contained composed but a 
mass of flagrant inconsistencies and gross inaccu¬ 
racies ; likewise that his second charge was far in- 
deed from being unfounded in egregiously unmi¬ 
litary conduct. 

And that his Royal Highness the Commander 
in Chief has been so utterly insensible to the de¬ 
mands of humanity and justice towards the memo- 

t 

rialist as even to refuse the memorialist's prayer 
for a court of inquiry, under all the circumstances 
herein before mentioned. 

Wherefore the memorialist humbly entreats 
that the right honourable the secretary at war 
would lay before the most equitable of Monarchs 
the several matters herein specified, with a most 
humble and fervent prayer that the Sovereign 


/ 


JAN 191949 





N. JEKYLL, ESQ.. 


217 


would be graciously pleased to suffer the memo¬ 
rialist to convince his Majesty, and to demonstrate 
to that army before which he has been unjustly 
degraded, through such channel as in his wisdom 
may seem fit, that the ( memorialist has not pre¬ 
ferred groundless and malicious complaints against 
colonel Richard Stewart of his Majesty’s 43d (or 
Monmouthshire) regiment of foot. 

And the memorialist shall ever pray, &c. 

NATHANIEL JEKYLL, 

Huntsinore Lodge, near Uxbridge, 

July 30 , 1805 . 

'• » 


SIR, War Office, Aug. 2 , 1805. 

I have the secretary at war’s directions to re¬ 
turn the memorial inclosed in your letter of the 
30th ult. the subject thereof not appertaining to 
his department. 

I am, Sir, 

Your most obedient humble servant, 

F. MOORE. 

To N. Jekyll , Esq . 

Huntsmore Lodge , near Uxbridge . 


THE END. 


PRINTED BY D. N. SIIURY, BERWICK STREET, SOHO. 

















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